Hand of the day

The spot

Pot

7.3 bb

Effective stack

97.5 bb

Table

6-max

Stakes

blinds 0.5 / 1

Your best five cards right now are a pair of aces , with the turn and the river still to come. That is measured from the cards above rather than read off the hand, which is also how the poker hand rankings on this site are checked before they go out.

How it went

1. Preflop

   • You post the big blind, 1
   • The button raises to 2.5
   • You call 1.5

2. Flop A ♠ 8 ♦ 5 ♣

   • You check
   • The button bets 1.8

And there the hand stops, because the next move is yours.

What would you do?

• Fold
• Call 1.8
• Raise to 5.5
• Raise to 97.5

Pick one before you scroll. Reading an answer you had not committed to teaches you nothing you can use at a table.

The answer

• Call 1.8 best 0.00 bb
• Raise to 5.5 -0.30 bb
• Raise to 97.5 -0.80 bb
• Fold -1.80 bb

Call 1.8 is the best of them at 0.00 bb. The next best is Raise to 5.5 at -0.30 bb, so taking that one instead costs 0.30 bb.

The numbers are expected values: the average result of picking that option, in the same unit as the pot above. What they are useful for is not the winner but the distance. A spot where the top two sit a hundredth apart is one you can get wrong all week without it mattering; a spot with whole units between them is where the money actually goes. Terms in the list above are all in the poker glossary , and if you would rather practise the pattern than read about it, the free table deals forty hands against a bot that folds when it should.