• To make a play (check, bet, call, raise, or fold) at the required time, compare to in turn. Acting out of turn A player in poker that either announces their actions or physically plays before their turn ( checks, folds etc ). Sometimes players act out of turn intentionally to get a read out of other players.
• The game of poker has its own slang or “poker talk.” If you are new to poker, learning the poker slang will greatly improve your knowledge of the game. From the small blind to the straight flush, here is a poker glossary of the important poker terms to know. Act: check, bet, raise, or fold. Action: whose turn it is, as in “Action is on.

1. What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Lingo
2. What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Room
3. What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Table
4. What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Terms

The preflop raiser can check-raise in a 3-bet pot Let’s take a look at the differences between the numbers behind single raised pots and 3-bet pots (assuming 100bb starting stacks): The parameters here are very different, which means that the optimal way to play each spot will be very different as well.

The main tool being used by majority of online players is the HUD (Heads-Up Display) available through poker tracking software. This tool provides a whole range of statistics on your opponents which allows you to gain extra information when making decisions at the table. When HUD’s were first introduced into poker not many players were using them due to the unfamiliarity with the program. However, the top online players quickly adapted to them which gave them an even bigger edge at the tables.

Statistics and math are a valuable tool in poker now despite not all players believing so. The great aspect of using a HUD is that it can be designed to whatever suits you as a player. Some players prefer basic stats to use a guideline whereas others prefer using as many statistics as possible to determine how their opponents are playing.

When using a HUD you need to make sure that you use the information given to you over a large sample as opposed to few hands: Making decisions based on players stats over a 20 hand sample might not give a true reflection of how they actually approach the game.

I would start to make decisions based on the HUD after an 80 hand sample or more as by then you’ll have a better indication of how someone is playing simply due to a more reliable sample of hands. Some of the following stats are typically used on a default HUD.

VPIP (Voluntary Put in Pot)

This statistic is used to show how many times a player voluntarily puts chips into pot e.g. limping, making a raise or calling a raise. However, it does not take into account the small and big blind position as they are both mandatory. VPIP is an important statistic and helps us identify if a player is tight, loose, solid or an extremely fishy player. The following categories show what number will relate to an opponent's playing style.

VPIP Numbers

• 0-10 - Tight player

• 11-20 - Tight players will have a VPIP of unto 13/14 but other statistics will determine how tight they are. Loose passive/aggressive players will also show a number in this range.

• 21-30 - Loose aggressive players will show a number around 21-25 but anything higher usually indicates a weaker fishy style of player. However, extremely aggressive/good players can show a VPIP in this range.

• 30+ - Weaker/fishy players

PFR (Pre-flop Raise)

This statistic is displayed in the HUD to show how many times an opponent has raised before the flop. This will indicate how aggressive/tight your opponents are which will help you identify a specific hand range which you can assign to certain players. The following number ranges will help you determine what style of player you are playing against.

PFR Numbers

• 0-10 - Tight player

• 11-20 -Tight players will tend to have a PFR capped at 12/13 but anything higher will be determined as just a regular aggressive player.

• 21-30 -Some aggressive/good players will be playing with a 21/22 stat but anything higher is a super aggressive player who are playing too many hands.

• 30+ -This range is usually assigned to fishy/weak players who are overplaying hands dealt to them.

3-bet

This statistic is used in the HUD to show us how many times our opponents re-raise another opponents raise pre-flop (the third bet). It's an extremely important statistic to use in the current era of poker and will help you understand how your opponents are playing and how you can exploit them depending on the % of hands they 3-bet. The following categories will determine how much your opponents are3-betting and what that necessarily means.

3-bet numbers

• 0-3 - This usually indicates a tighter player who will only 3-bet their value hands.

• 4-6 - This will indicate a fairly aggressive opponent who is still fairly tight but will be 3-betting some hands as a bluff.

• 7-9 - This statistic in the HUD will indicate a much more aggressive player who is 3-betting a vast amount of hands and will be trying to put pressure on opponents majority of the time.

• 10+ - With a 3-bet % of 10 or more, this will indicate an extremely aggressive player who is 3-betting way more than often showing that they are trying to run over the table or exploit the weaker opponents at the table.

Essentially, the more your opponents 3-bet the more you need to adjust to that player and figure out how to exploit them. This could be by only opening a strong range of hands with that player left to act or deciding to 4-bet bluff on a few occasions to play back at your opponents.

Fold to 3-bet

This statistic tells us how often a player will fold to a 3-bet pre-flop. Using this stat in our HUD is extremely important is it will give us enough information to determine how aggressive or tight we can play against particular players. If a player is opening a wide range of hands from a specific position and has a high fold to 3-bet then we can decide to 3-bet a wider range of hands. The following categories will determine how much your opponents are folding to 3-bets and how we react to that.

Fold to 3-bet Numbers

What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Lingo

• 0-20 - This indicates that a player is not folding to 3-bets that often therefore we should only be 3-betting our value hands.

• 21-40 - This also indicates that a player will not fold to that many 3-bets but we can still pick our spots to 3-bet light especially if a players fold to 3-bet is close to 40.

• 41-60 - With a fold to 3-bet in this range, we can start to widen our 3-betting range against these players as enough of the time they will fold.

• 61-80 - Players that fall into this range will be relatively passive players therefore we can 3-bet them with marginal hands and play against these players in position a good amount of the time.

• 80+ - This indicates that majority of the time our opponents are folding to 3-bets therefore similar to the last category, we can be 3-betting more than usual against these players and exploiting them.

It's important to make sure that you adapt to different types of players but remember your own image at the table. Whilst it's fine to 3-bet a wide range of hands against players who have a high fold to 3-bet, you have to consider that our opponents will adapt to what we are doing at the table. Therefore, pick your spots and you don't always have to take a 3-bet spot, balance your play as much as you can.

ATS (Attempt to Steal)

This statistic tell us how often a player is raising from late position attempting to steal the blinds. Usually, a player will be attempting to steal from the HJ+ (Hijack) as there are less players left to act that will show resistance to the raise. Using this statistic in a HUD is extremely important in tournament poker as stealing blinds is a great way of accumulating chips. We will able to identify a more accurate range of hands that our opponents are opening with when attempting to steal based on the number shown in the HUD. Additionally, using the fold to 3-bet stat in conjunction with the attempt to steal stat, we will be able to identify how often they are stealing from late position but folding to 3-bets, which will give us a good indication of whether or not we can play back at our opponents . The following categories will show what certain statistics mean and how we can adapt to them.

ATS Numbers

• 0-20 - This indicates that our opponents are not attempting to steal that often therefore we can defend the blinds with a stronger range of hands and not play back at these opponents too much.

• 21-40 - This shows that our opponents are starting to steal a little wider therefore we can show some resistance by 3-betting or playing against them in position.

• 41-60 - With an attempt to steal stat in this range, this suggests that our opponents are raising a little wider in late position. Therefore, we can 3-bet a little wider in position against the right opponents and we can defend a little wider from the blinds if necessary.

• 61-80 - This indicates that our opponents are raising a wide amount from late position and we should be playing against them as much as we can in position to try and combat them. Typically, we will start to widen our 3-betting range and put more pressure on our opponents.

• 80+ - Similar to the last category, this suggests that our opponents are opening close to 100% of their range therefore we need to be playing back a good amount of the time or playing in position against them. These are the type of opponents we can attempt to trap and play our big hands in position to try and win the maximum.

As much as these categories help identify the types of players we are up against, if we play back against them too much they will start to adjust their opening range and try and induce a mistake out of us. It's important to balance your play rather than constantly 3-betting a player that is stealing 80% of the time. Thinking about our own image is just as important as our opponents image.

Note (October 2014): This article needs to be re-written. Some of the stuff is okay, but the math needs to be fixed.
Until then, here's a 5 minute video on How To Use A Fold Equity Calculator.
— Greg

In this article I will cover the basics of fold equity and how it makes semi-bluffs profitable. It's a fairly simple concept though, so don't be too nervous about it.

If you don't know what equity is just yet, read up on the poker equity article before reading this one.

What is fold equity?

Fold equity is the additional equity you gain in the hand when you believe that there is a chance that your opponent will fold to your bet.

Every time you bet, there is the chance that your opponent will fold their hand. If our opponent folds, we win the entire pot regardless of how strong our hand is.

This chance that our opponent will give up their hand to our bet will increase our overall equity in the hand because we are giving ourselves an additional opportunity to win the pot as opposed to just showing down the best hand.

So every time we bet when there is a chance that our opponent will fold we are adding that little extra equity to our hand. So when you bet, think of your overall equity like this:

Total Equity = fold equity + hand equity

If our opponent will always fold, we cannot lose and therefore have 100% equity. If we do get called, our hand has equity because it is going to win the pot a % of the time.

Therefore, our total equity is our fold equity + the equity our hand has when we get called.

On a basic level, fold equity can be summarized by the following simple statements:

• How much fold equity do we have?
• If we think it is likely that our opponent will fold to our bet, we have a lot of fold equity.
• If we think it is unlikely that our opponent will fold to our bet, we have little fold equity.
• If we do not think our opponent will fold to our bet, we have no fold equity.

How do you get fold equity?

To get fold equity you have to bet or raise. If you are not betting or raising then you are not giving your opponent the opportunity to fold, so you will have no fold equity.

But you're not trying to obtain fold equity. You either have it or you don't, and you make the best decision based on what you've got. Nonetheless:

• The looser our image, the less fold equity we're likely to have.
• The tighter our image, the more fold equity we're likely to have.

What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Room

You'll have the most fold equity when you've played the hand in a way that makes it believable that you've got your opponent beat. It's all about your betting pattern and history.

I probably should have clarified this point at the start, but I'm sure the majority of you will have assumed that this was the case anyway.

Mathematics of fold equity.

When you make a bet, you are basically absorbing some of your opponent's equity in the hand if there is a chance that they will fold. Fold equity can be expressed by a straightforward equation:

Fold equity = (chance our opponent will fold) * (opponent's equity in the hand).

The % chance that your opponent will fold is based on your knowledge of your opponent. So for example, using your experience you could say that there is a good chance that your opponent will fold 75% of the time when making a bet in a certain situation.

Your opponent's equity in the hand is pretty self explanatory. It's just the % of the pot they expect to win on average by the river. More specifically, it's the % equity their range has, but don't worry about that for now.

Total equity in the hand.

Total equity = fold equity + hand equity

As you will remember, your total equity in the hand is your current equity plus your fold equity. Fold equity on it's own isn't all that useful, so we add it to our standard equity to give us our overall equity in the hand.

Fold equity example.

Let's say we are on the flop and we know that our opponent is holding K J on the following flop:

Flop: Q K 2

Our hand: 9 T - 42.4% equity.
Opponent's hand: K J - 57.6% equity.

I worked out the equity of each of these hands using PokerStove. Get it already.

Our opponent is first to act and bets in to us. However, we are a little short stacked and believe that if we push all-in there is a 50% chance that our opponent will fold. Without even having to work this out we can already guess that this is going to be a profitable play over the long run, but lets do the math anyway.

• Fold equity = (chance our opponent will fold) * (opponent's equity in the hand).
• Fold equity = (0.5) * (57.4).
• Fold equity = 28.8%.

Now let's find our total equity in the hand.

• Total equity = our current equity + fold equity.
• Total equity = 42.4% + 28.8%.
• Total equity = 71.2%.

What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Table

So every time we shove all-in with our drawing hand we will have 71.2% equity in the hand on average. Therefore, whereas calling to complete our draw would be unprofitable with our 42.4% equity, the addition of fold equity in the hand makes our shove a profitable play over the long run.

The benefits of fold equity.

Fold equity is the reason why semi-bluffs can be profitable.

Fold equity is the driving force behind semi-bluffs. The vast majority of the time you will be using fold equity to your advantage when betting or raising with a flush or a straight draw.

On their own, these draws will generally not have enough equity to make it worth calling bets and raises. However, if you are the one betting and raising, the addition of fold equity can turn the overall equity in your favour. So over the long run, well-played semi-bluffs with drawing hands will be profitable.

Read the article on playing drawing hands aggressively for further discussion on this topic.

Pure bluffs and fold equity.

Whether a pure bluff is profitable or not almost completely depends on fold equity. This is because if you have no equity in the hand based on the strength of your cards, you are relying on fold equity alone to make the bluff profitable. For example:

Board: Q K 2 8 2

Our hand: 9 T - 0% equity.
Opponent's hand: K J - 100% equity.

Unless you believe that your opponent is folding at least 50% of the time, your bluff is not going to be profitable. Your fold equity = total equity here (current equity = 0%), so if it's less than 50% you will be losing more money than you win over the long run.

Fold equity evaluation.

You're not expected to get out your calculator and work out your fold equity every time you run a bluff or a semi-bluff. However, you can gauge a fairly accurate idea of your fold equity and use it to influence your decision when contemplating a semi-bluff.

If you have little or no fold equity, strongly reconsider making that semi-bluff.

So don't worry about the numbers involved in fold equity during play, just familiarise yourself with it and go from there. Your semi-bluffing skills should improve nicely over time.

Related articles.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

What Does Check Bet And Fold Mean In Poker Terms

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