Poker 101 Rules and Concepts for our Annual Charity Tournament

Adapted from MIT 15.S50 Lecture Brainteasers Problem: • (1) In Poker, what is the best hand to go up against Pocket Aces? (other than the other two Aces?)

• (2) The situation: heads up on the turn, but before the river comes out you already know you are guaranteed to lose, regardless of what your opponent has. What are your hole cards, and what is on the board? Brainteaser Solution: • (1) In Poker, what is the best hand to go up against Pocket Aces? (other than the other two Aces?) • AA 77.50% 65s 22.50%

• (2) The situation: heads up on the turn, but before the river comes out you already know you are guaranteed to lose, regardless of what your opponent has. What are your hole cards, and what is on the board? • Your hole cards: 22 • Board: any quads (5555) Announcements

• Annual Charity – Saturday, 4/15

• Pitch Perfect: A QFS-USWIB Production • Pitch Workshops: 4/11 and 4/18 at 6:30pm • Deadline: 4/18 • Competition: 4/20 • Registration: http://tinyurl.com/qfsuswib • If you are interested but don’t have a team, email us! Poker Rules Texas Hold ‘Em Overview • Texas Hold'em is a community card poker game, with game play focused as much on the betting as on the cards being played • Texas Holdem is played on a single table with 2 to 9 players • You win a by having the best hand, or by having all other players fold before the showdown • The structure of Texas Hold'em can be broken up into three main divisions: 1. Setup 2. Betting Rounds 3. Showdown Poker Rules Hand Rankings Poker Rules General Overview 1) Post big and little blind 2) Dealer deals each player 2 cards face down 3) Betting begins – can call, raise, or fold 4) The Flop – the dealer burns the top card and places 3 cards on table face up. 2nd round of betting 5) The Turn – burns a card and another card placed face up on table. 3rd round of betting 6) The River – burns a card and places the last card face up on table. 4th and final round of betting 7) A player can use any combination of the 7 available cards – 5 community cards and 2 in hand – to make best 5 card poker hand 8) Hands are revealed. The best hand wins. Poker Rules Rules – Gameplay and Betting Rounds • Dealing starts with the player left of the dealer button, rotating around the table in a clockwise manner, giving each player one card at a time until each player has two cards. These are known as your hole cards. • A hand of Hold'em consists of a minimum of one and a maximum of four betting rounds. A hand ends when all players but one have folded, or the fourth and final betting round completes with multiple players still in the hand - whichever comes first. • At that point, players enter into the showdown Poker Rules Actions • Check: If nobody has bet yet this round, checking allows you to continue playing without putting more chips into the pot • Fold: They pay nothing to the pot and throw away their hand, waiting for the next deal to play again. • Bet: Adding money to the pot, forcing others to match your bet • All-in (Shove): Betting the total amount of chips you have • Call: They match the amount of the previous bet • Raise: They raise the bet, forcing others to match the new amount • Re-raise/3-bet: Raising the bet after someone else has already raised Poker Rules Flop, Turn, and River • Dealing the top card in the deck facedown on the table (burn card) • Flop: 3 faceup community cards • Turn: 1 faceup community card • River: 1 faceup community card, last chance to bet • The first player to act is the next player to the left of the dealer (starting with the small blind) • The minimum bet is the amount of the big blind Poker Rules Showdown • The best hand wins the pot • You are not required to show your hand, but you must show your hand to win the pot • The player who bet or raised last on the river (the “aggressor”) is the first player to reveal their hand • If no action happened on the river, the first player clockwise to the dealer shows their hand first • If a player is holding a losing hand, it is their option to reveal their cards or simply muck their hand and concede the pot Poker Rules Evaluating Hands • In Hold'em you must make the best hand possible using any combination of your two cards and the five community cards on the table. Understanding Poker The Importance of Blinds • The game revolves around the blinds. The motivation of every hand is to the money that was forced into the pot. Without the blinds, there is no game. • You would always fold KK preflop if there were no blinds. • Your stack size is always measured relative to the blinds. Having $400 in front of you in a game where the blinds are $1/$2 is, for our purposes, completely equivalent to having $4000 in front of you in a $10/$20 game. • In both situations above, we say that you have “200 big blinds”, or “200BB” Understanding Poker Positioning • Why do we rotate the dealer button? • Early forces you to act first • Late position means that you can determine what to do after seeing what your opponents have already done • In the preflop round, your hole cards are important, but your cards relative to your position is more important • 99 in early position is much worse than 55 as the dealer

Poker Math Common Heads-Up Matches Poker Math Common Heads-Up Matches Principles of Poker Math Understanding Expected

• betting a friend $1 on the flip of a coin. Each time it comes up head, you win. Each time it comes up tails, you lose. • The odds of coming up heads are 1 : 1 • You are betting $1 : $1 • Mathematical Expectation = 0 • Cannot expect to be ahead or behind after 2 flips or 200 flips • Expectation = (w * pw) + (-v * pl) • w = gain on the winning bet • pw = probability of the win • v = value of the loss • pl = probability of the loss Principles of Poker Math Understanding Expected Value

• Now, say your friend (who is not too intelligent) wants to bet $2 to your $1 on the flip of a coin • Do you take the bet? • The odds of coming up heads are still 1-to-1 • You are now betting $2-to-$1 • Expected Value= $0.50 • Expect to win one and lose one • Lose first one, lose $1 • Win second one, win $2 • By the equation: • E = (2 * ½) + (-1 * ½) = ½ = $0.50 Principles of Poker Math Understanding Expected Value • A person chooses a number between 1 and 5 and holds it behind their back. They bet you $5 to your $1 that you cannot guess the number. • Do you take the bet? • What is the expected value?

1 4 • E = (5 * /5)+(-1 * /5) = 1/5 =$0.20 Poker Math • Pot odds are the odds you're "being offered by the pot" to make your call. This is the amount of money in the pot compared to the amount of money you must pay to stay in the hand. • Say we go to the river heads-up. There's $10 in the pot and your opponent bets $5. Since your opponent's bet is now part of the pot, you're being offered $15 for a cost of $5. In ratio form, that's 15:5 • Since we can simply a 15:5 ratio, the pot odds in this situation are 3:1 Poker Concepts Outs / Equity • Outs: the number of cards left in the deck that would improve your hand • Ex. If I have 4 hearts on the Turn, then there are 9 outs left to get a flush on the River ≈ • Since there are 46 unknown cards left, our ratio of outs is 46:9 , or approximately slightly more than 5:1 • We can also calculate our “equity,” or percent chance of winning • Since there are 9 outs and 46 cards, there is a 9/46, or 19.6% chance of winning Poker Math Rule of 2 • A simple way to approximate our equity is using the Rule of 2 • Simply multiply the number of outs you have * 2 • This works because there are approximately 50 cards left in the deck • Previous example: If we have 9 outs left for our flush, the Rule of 2 states that our equity is approximately 9 * 2 ≈ 18% Poker Math Comparing Pot Odds vs Outs • In the previous examples, we have found out: • Pot Odds: 3:1 • Equity: 5:1 • Since the ratio of outs is greater than our pot odds, we cannot profitably call • We have: • w = 15 • pw = 9/46 • v = 5 • pl = 38/46 • E = (15*(9/46)) + (-5*(38/46)) = -1.2 Negative expected value, so don’t call! Poker Theory Sklansky Hand Groups

• Created in 1999, , a professional poker player assigned hand groups • Worse hands are more viable given table positioning (next slide) • Tip: Play fewer hands – Sklansky Hand Groups gives good guideline of what hands to play and fold

Poker Theory Pay Attention to Gain Information – Most plays are boring

• The vast majority of poker hands you'll be dealt actually require little to no thought at all. • You should only be playing somewhere in the neighborhood of 15% of all hands. • This means 85% of the time you're dealt in, you're folding. • Of the 15% of hands you're playing, many of them are going to be simple, one-action hands. Either you raise your K♠ K♥ and everyone folds, or you're ready to play your 9♥ 9♠ when a player moves all-in ahead of you. • Only a few hands you play will really require some thought. And only a fraction of those will force you to make a very difficult decision. Poker Theory Pay Attention to Gain Information – When auto-playing look for EVERYTHING • Everything a player does at the table is a clue to how they play and what kind of decisions they're going to make. • Watch how they talk, how they sit. Watch every hand that plays out even if you're not in it. • Take notes (mental notes in live poker obv.) anytime someone does something out of the ordinary. Note how much money they brought, how they bought in. • Do they like to play in large pots? Are they scared of losing? Do they ? Watch everything, and understand that everything is a clue. • The more you take in, and the more you consciously catalog, evaluate and remember, the better chance you'll have at making the right decisions when the time comes. Poker Thoery Further strategies • Understand what your table image is • TAG = Tight, Aggressive player • Make sure your bluffs/story make sense • Balanced vs. Unbalanced Ranges • Polarized vs. Unpolarized • Implied Odds • Avoid getting “tilted” Poker Resources

• Podcast: “The Breakdown” by The Poker Guys • The Theory of Poker – David Sklanksy • Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold’em – Phil Gordon • The Mathematics of Poker – Bill Chen • MIT 15.S50 Lectures - Will Ma