A - Z of Poker: Day 5

From London to Vegas in 26 Letters

Day5: E if for ...

E is for +EV (positive Expected Value). One of those many buzz-words and acronyms beloved of poker math-geeks. Also a shorthand among poker aficionados for a favourable happening in any part of life.

We're supposed to play "+EV poker": making the right choices in terms of game selection, positional play, hand ranges, pot odds and so on. Opinions seems to vary on whether we should pursue an EV edge at all costs, but it's hard to argue that +EV is a bad model for success.

For me, though, poker is +EV by nature. I love playing, and writing about it, reading about it, just being around it. I am a wholehearted subscriber to the notion that "the next best thing to playing poker and winning, is playing poker and losing".

The fact is, of course, that this attitude is almost certainly -EV in terms of the actual business of winning. However, from the glass-half-full perspective, poker is win-win for me.

E if for Early Night. This is a bad thing in poker terms. On a Sunday night I will generally play at least one of the large field MTTs. Tonight I played the $250k guarantee (30,000 runners) and the benchmark "Sunday Millions" on pokerstars, and I also played the $50k and $100k guarantees on gutshot.com.

The "Million" routinely runs till breakfast-time on Monday. The others are not quite as intense, but should see the winners playing until the early hours.

So, being able to switch off the PC at 11:30pm meant this was definitely a "-EV" evening. An opportunity to catch up on sleep was scant compensation!