A lot of players new to online poker will ask a search engine for a Juicy Stakes Poker review. We look forward to reading all of the reviews about our great online poker room. Players will conduct a search for a review of many online poker rooms. We do feel that we get kudos for all of the things we provide players.
Juicy Stakes Offers Great Poker
First, we offer poker in primarily Omaha and Texas Hold’em. These are the two main poker variations that online poker players want to play. Second, we offer a very wide range of stakes levels so that players playing at very low stakes and those who can play at high stakes can find a game to their liking.
Third, we cap the rake on any hand so that even if the pot gets way up there our rake from the pot is limited. Fourth, we offer great promotions and tournaments to poker players. Fifth, we have an online casino “sister” site. Gamers have one casino account for both gaming venues. All promotions apply to both venues.
Poker Math is Here to Stay
Finally, Juicy Stakes Poker has an extensive articles section in which we try to educate and edify our players. Recently, we wrote an article about the very basics of poker math. Here we would like to expand our discussion of poker math.
Why Do So Many Poker Players Avoid Poker Math?
Well, first of all, there’s math involved! A lot of people struggled with math way back in grammar school and high school. So, it is “reasonable” for them to think that they will struggle with poker math.
However, poker math is like the modern statistics in baseball. Taken together, baseball stats are called analytics, and baseball success is often based on the team’s best use of the vast array of baseball analytics.
So, we will assume that you are still reading because you do want to play poker online, and you do know that a working knowledge of poker math has become essential for success at poker.
The Basics of Poker Math Revolve around Three Concepts
There are three concepts that form the top of the poker math hierarchy. They are pot odds, equity, and expected value. We spoke at length about pot odds a couple of weeks ago. In poker terms, equity is not a political concept; it is simply a mathematical way of looking at a hand. Expected value is generally abbreviated as EV.
Now, EV can be seen in almost all monetary transactions which we usually just call “buying something”. So, when we get to EV, keep in mind that poker EV is just like canned corn EV.
The Single Biggest Flaw in Most Poker Math Tutorials
Here we are referring to the many fractions and percentages presented in any detailed analysis of poker based on the math. We will try to simplify the concepts of equity and expected value by avoiding as much as we can the fractions and percentages and so on.
Equity is a Concept Everyone Understands
A homeowner has equity in his or her house. You have equity in your car. You have equity based on the level of insurance you have. A business has equity in the loyalty of its customers.
The equity you have in your house is a simple number that the bank can tell you. The equity in your car is listed in the “Blue Book” or whatever name your locality calls the book that lists equity in a car based on the make, model, year, and number of miles driven.
These equities are easy to evaluate. You might decide to sell your house and buy something bigger or smaller based on the value of houses where you would like to buy. You might sell your car or keep it based on the equity and the cost of buying a different car.
How Can a Business Calculate its Customers’ Loyalty?
This is a very difficult concept and businesses often fall flat when they think that they have more customer equity than they really do. Kmart famously over-expanded and went bankrupt. Schlitz famously altered the brewing process to brew beer faster. The beer was terrible, and they lost almost all of their customer equity.
In poker, you have a certain level of equity in any hand that you stay in. Here, equity is not a percent of the pot if you stay in the hand. That concept is pot odds. In other words, equity in poker is not a specific monetary sum. Rather, it is a percentage of your chance to win the hand based on every parameter up to that point.
Instead of memorizing a dizzying number of percentages, it is better to know how the hand you have compares to all other hands. For example, aces before the flop is a super powerful hand. Aces after the flop, if you didn’t improve, have a lot less equity. It might still be the best hand but it has less equity.
We feel that it is better to bracket hands by ranges that you easily understand. Pocket aces might be called Great before the flop and Still Pretty Good after the flop. But, if the flop has a pair, your opponent might have a set to your ace-high two pair. Thus, in that case, pocket aces can be considered Tricky or In Danger.
You don’t have to know the exact percentage of equity you have in any hand. You do need to know if your equity is overwhelming, underwhelming, or in between. If it is in between and has decreased, then you have diminishing equity. If it is growing but still in the middle, you have rising equity.
Finally, you have to know your opponent. If he is a calling machine, your equity might be rising since he often calls with a poor hand. If she is generally a passive player and is betting with confidence, you might have a good hand with diminishing equity.
Expected Value and Equity are Sister Concepts
Just as everyone knows what equity is in everyday areas, so does everyone understand expected value or EV in everyday matters. Your EV on a house is that its value will rise over time. Your EV on a car is that it will decrease over time.
EV is also a concept that relates to how long you will keep something. The EV in a pair of shoes will decrease over time but if you hoped to wear the shoes for three years, then the EV at purchase could be called three years.
Then you have to decide if the cost of the shoes, compared to the EV of three years makes the purchase worth it or not.
The same idea applies in poker. If an opponent bets, you have to evaluate pot odds, equity, and EV. What is your EV in this hand? It, once again, is vitally important to include your opponent’s tendencies into the equation.
At this point, most analyses of EV in poker get all fractiony and percentagey. We promised not to do that. So, how can a player determine the EV for any hand? Here is where poker math gives way to the more subjective analyses.
We said above that a passive player betting strongly causes your equity to drop dramatically. It also causes your EV to drop dramatically. If you started out with aces and the flop, the turn, and the river didn’t improve your hand, and an opponent is still betting, and he or she is not known to be a wild bettor, then your EV has gone from very high to almost zero.
Of course, as you become more advanced in poker experience, you might decide to actually learn the raw math behind EV and equity in poker. At the beginning of your career in online poker, knowing the raw value of your hand and the betting tendencies of any opponent are better than trying to figure out the percentages over the table.
Juicy Stakes Poker Welcomes You
We feel that any review of Juicy Stakes will emphasize the positives, of which there are many. Your EV for joining Juicy Stakes Poker is high.
