Part: Part Four - Pot Odds & Hand Analysis
Fold equity in a shove
Pre-flop
You have a 25 BB stack in the big blind. A button player opens to 500 and you call with 9♠8♠.
25 BB deep, button opens to 500 (2.5 BB); you hold 9♠8♠ in the BB. Best?
WhyAt 25 BB a suited connector is happy to see a flop, and the shallow stack is a feature, not a flaw: flop a draw and your whole stack becomes a credible semi-bluff jam.
What happensYou call and take a flop heads-up with about 4,500 behind - the perfect stack for a shove with fold equity. Pot: 1,100 (5.5 BB).
Flop
Flop: K♠ 6♠ 2♦ - you flop a flush draw. He bets 600, and you have about 4,500 behind.
A check-raise all-in here is profitable mainly because of…
WhyJust calling banks only your ~19% next-card equity and nothing else. Jamming opens a second income stream: every hand that can't continue has to fold, so you win outright a real share of the time, and when he does call you still carry ~35% to the river. Stacking those two sources together is what pushes the shove ahead of a flat.
What happensYou check-raise all-in for 4,500; this time he calls with a king and the flush never arrives. It stings, but the jam was still the winning play - you're paid by the folds you don't see here and the ~35% you realize over the long run. One brick doesn't refute the math.
A shove with a draw and a short stack beat a passive call because it stacked fold equity on top of draw equity - you scoop it uncontested a good share of the time and still hold ~35% when called. The line is +EV even on the nights the flush misses.
A semi-bluff all-in earns from two sources at once - the chance he folds now, plus your equity when he calls - and together they can make shoving beat calling even though the jam sometimes gets snapped off and loses.