Hand of the day

The spot

Pot

2.5 bb

Effective stack

100 bb

Table

6-max

Stakes

blinds 0.5 / 1

No board yet, so there is nothing made and nothing to draw at. A preflop decision is made on two cards, your seat and the price, and the preflop charts are the shortest version of what that usually comes down to.

How it went

1. Preflop

   • The small blind posts 0.5
   • The big blind posts 1
   • Under the gun calls 1

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

What would you do?

• Fold
• Call 1
• Raise to 4

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

The answer

• Raise to 4 best 0.00 bb
• Call 1 -0.45 bb
• Fold -0.80 bb

Raise to 4 is the best of them at 0.00 bb. The next best is Call 1 at -0.45 bb, so taking that one instead costs 0.45 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.