We are sure you're thinking, "what does my score mean?".

• View The Strategy Behind The Correct Answers Below

The way we measure our performance against the Trainer is by tracking "EV Loss" or Expected Value Loss. The best possible result after you pick your action is an EV Loss of 0. This means your action breaks even against a perfect player.

When EV Loss isn’t 0, the number shown is the amount of big blinds that we would lose taking a specific action in the long run.

It is possible to make a poor play (high EV Loss) that results in you winning a specific hand. I’m sure you’ve all seen players make bad plays and win the pot or make the right play and lose the pot. Over time EV Loss will track closer and closer to actual losses.

We only care about EV Loss, we don’t care whether or not we win any one particular hand.

This allows us to have a long term mindset towards poker that focuses on the quality of our decisions and not short term results.

Learn The Strategy For The 5 Cash Game Hands You Just Played!

This week we’re focused on a small stakes cash game spot where you are out of position against a tough opponent on the Button who called your 5BB open from early position.

Given the larger standard opening raise size (5BBs in this case) ranges should theoretically be narrower than they would be in games where the standard opening raise size is much smaller. The risk versus reward on stealing the blinds gets much worse which gives you far less incentive to open as wide as you otherwise might.

You opened in early position, which even in a game with a smaller opening raise size will be a hand range that is already quite narrow. In this spot given the 5BB open, our range is even more narrow plus it is uncapped. The Button’s response is also quite narrow and very condensed, consisting mostly of pairs and suited broadway cards with a few bigger off suit aces and some smaller suited aces mixed in.

On Ace high and King high flops the fact that both players should have narrow ranges will make your strategy fairly straightforward. You will have a massive advantage on these boards so, as a default, you should be continuation betting them with your entire range.

Other flops become much trickier. The Button’s range contains a lot of suited broadway cards, meaning boards without an Ace of a King that contain other broadway cards can be a bit dangerous even though you still possess a range advantage on these boards. The result is that many other boards implement some sort of mixed strategy mixing between continuation bets and checks with relatively even EV and frequencies.

You can focus on factors such as how much your hand benefits from protection to help swing these decisions. For example, a hand like 99 on a Q-6-2 board is less vulnerable than 55 so you may be more inclined to bet the 55 and check the 99. Considering key blockers and backdoor equity can help tip your decisions also.

The biggest mistake that can be made in this scenario is to always continuation bet and bloat the pot out of position. You have the advantage on many flops and should press it, but only as a part of a mixed strategy that also allows getting to some controlled showdowns while keeping the Button’s range wide as well.

See how close you get to 0 EV Loss and high percentage plays, then reread the advice above from the LearnWPT Pros.

Keep practicing
-Team LearnWPT

P.S. LearnWPT Platinum Members can play more hands from this scenario by clicking here.