Quickly Estimating Your Opponents' Folding Percentages

By JAR

As we know, in all forms of poker hands it's vital to get opponents to fold to your aggressions, especially at the endgame of tournaments, which in most cases are defined by shove-fests. The intention of this article is give you an idea on how to calculate your probabilities of winning uncontested and how to push it up few percentage points.

Assign Distributions

The first step is to assign hand and calling distributions to your opponents, with the intention of estimating your fold equity. Suppose action folds to you in the cutoff, and you have 75s. You will need to asses the situation because your opponents haven't acted yet: you have to estimate what their hand distributions are [All], and if you push all-in, foresee which opponents would call and what they will call with [AA-55, AK-AT].

There is an important element that you should consider when you are playing poker: there are 1,225 total 2 card combinations in a 50 card deck. When you are playing you only know your 2 hole cards, but depending on that, if in the pocket pair there are 0, 1 or 2 cards in common with yours, you can know that there are 6, 3 or 1 combination of poker pairs in your opponents' distributions, based on the above.

Multiply

The way of knowing the possibility that all your opponents will fold isn't exact, but with simple multiplication you can know your opponents' folding probabilities. For example, if you have 2 players, A and B, and each of them has a probability to fold, then: P(A) and P(B).

So, the possibility that both players will fold will be the result of this multiplication: P(A) x P(B).

What Is Fold Equity?

It's possible to think of fold equity as your success rate when you try to bluff. This is because fold equity is the value you get off the pot from the possibility of your opponent folding.

Be Comfortable With Estimating

When you have an estimate of the odds that all your opponents will fold, even if it's not a true percentage, it represents a big help for your next move. When you are in the heat of battle, you need to make important decisions in shot time, and by using estimates, you will at least feel secure that you are in the ballpark. So my recommendation is to consider each movement carefully; play smart and enjoy your triumphs and rewards.

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