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

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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.

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

This week we’re focused on a typical cash game spot where you are out of position against a tough player in the Big Blind after calling a 3-bet in the Small Blind.

A close examination of both ranges in this situation reveals the Big Blind is 3-betting with a polarized mix of extremely strong hands such as AA/KK/AK, as well as with bluff hands like Q4o and T6o as a part of an overall mixed strategy. Your range is far more condensed and capped without many of the premium hands, but has more J8s/Q9s hands that realize equity much better out of position than the offsuit combos possible in the Big Blind’s range.

In a scenario where both players have a wide range with relatively deep stacks, the in-position player has a tremendous advantage. They have the ability to force the out of position player into tough spots with marginal hands such as bottom pair or even ace high that are often good, but difficult to navigate to showdown. To combat the positional disadvantage you will be checking your entire range to the Big Blind initially to keep their range as wide as possible.

Your opponent will be continuation betting frequently here as they are in position with wide ranges postflop after being the preflop aggressor. You must be careful to not give up too often with hands such as ace high or bottom pair that have any sort of reasonable equity to smaller bet sizing or you will be easily exploitable.

Many of your hands with reasonable showdown equity will become check/calls to keep your opponent’s range as wide as possible. Since your opponent’s range is quite polarized you will be able to occasionally check-raise their continuation bets. This allows for turn second bullets with some frequency, particularly with hands that either have significant blockers or some backdoor equity.

Most of your focus in this scenario will be getting to controlled showdowns. Even your biggest hands will often slowplay until the river to protect the rest of your range that wants to navigate to an inexpensive showdown. Most of your pure bluffs will come on the flop in spots where your hand doesn’t have a lot of showdown equity but has some blocking effect or significant backdoor possibilities.

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

Play More Hands From This Cash Game Spot

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