StandEV, or Evaluate-Value- Weight, is one of the most flawed concepts in betting. It has probably caused more than a few betting systems to fail. The concept is simple, but it is wrong. Just bet big when you have a strong hand. That’s the problem. When you have a strong hand, you should bet big. That’s the only way to win.
EV, orevaluate-Value- Weight, is another flawed concept. It is the idea that you should be rewarding players for playing well. That is the wrong way to think about poker. You are not rewarded for your poker skills; you are rewarded for your luck.
The win-rate of players is absolutely unlimited, but the money you make is finite. If you make the right EV decisions, you can beat the other players, and you will make more money than everyone else. If you make wrong EV decisions, you will lose money.
A winning poker system is simple to explain. It is a system that works. Some people call this thehunger mode of poker. You are worse than you know. You are hungry for more information. You want to know why he hit his drawing hand. Why did he make that decision? Why didn’t he fold? To enhance your decision making skills.
This is exactly what you need in an EV system. When you play in a poker tournament you need an EV system. You can’t survive without it.
Overcards are crap. I wrote this in the third along with a suggestion on string theory. The idea is to induce your opponents to fold by betting and raising. The raise is an incentive to get more money in the pot, because the blinds are so high. It won’t make sense to raise the blinds extremely high because then the bets will be too high to call. Make the bets small. ESPECIALLY at the beginning of the Dewavegas. The idea is to build a big pot.
String theory is the process of making a series of small bets when you have a strong hand. It all adds up to one big bet when you have a great hand. By doing this, you induce your opponents to fold. The bets are small in an attempt to keep the hand alive. When you have a weak hand, you do not raise, because you don’t want to risk a large amount of chips in the beginning.
This idea might be a little advanced for you. You might not be ready to handle an all-in move like this. It is best to start out with something simple, like a small continuation bet when you have a small hand. Only play these hands after you have developed a tight image.
This is probably the most worthwhile part of developing your image. Once you have a tight image, which is created by playing tight and not playing every hand, you will always be a player who looks at his cards rather than at his patrons. You will find that your hands rarely if ever will be contested. As a result, when you bet you will be adding value to the pot.
Now that you are thinking about using an EV system to try and beat the collar, you might ask, ‘What if I decide to play a hand?’ In this situation what you must do is add your EV system to the process. It is true that sometimes you will call in this situation, but you will usually only do it if you have a very strong hand. You should also train yourself to be keenly aware of your own image at the table. You should be aware of your opponents’ possible hands, and not play hands that you are unsure of.
This is the essence of using an EV system, and it is the fundamental reason you will be a better poker player than your opponents. However, to be a better poker player you first train yourself to be a better player, which cannot be done in one sitting. Make this training then continue on to take a small amount of money from small kids.
When you are doing this, for example on Full Tilt NL holdem, you should be constantly watching for opponents who are playing too tight. If your opponents are doing this, you are doing them a favor. Raise them out of the blinds more frequently. Loose players on the other hand will tend to call you with less than premium hands.
However, as the blinds go up, hands that were once premium will now only be playable in small increments because of the cost of the blind. In order to be able to play, you need to have an opening hand in this phase, so use the same approach as before when your opponents check. However, when they call I want them to have to have a weak hand in order to justify calling cost of the blind.