Poker Math That Matters

4. The fourth method I've termed the "mental slider"
method. We'll abbreviate it to the "MS Method". Very
simply I know I need to get 3/4 of the way between 9
and 66. I simply visually a slider in my head and move
it up to where I feel 3/4 of the way would be (See Figure
9).
Figure 9. The MS method finding 3/4 of the way from 9 to 66.
Obviously the MS Method is not an exact science, but I do it
basically because it gets me very close to the actual percentage,
and I can do it quickly without a lot of mental effort at the table.
Let’s do one more for good measure. We’ll make it a preflop
example. We have A♠K♠ in early position and raise to $3. The
tight small blind shoves over our raise for $18 total. We start
with our pot odds. The pot is $21. 8 We must call $15. We’re
getting about 1.4:1 here, so we need to be good a little over 40%
of the time. Now we’ll look at our assumed range for the tight
small blind. Let’s say he can have JJ+ and AK. Let’s examine
our equity against the hands in his range. Again, preflop equities
in situations like this you’ll need to use a tool like Pokerstove
and then get used to the numbers it produces.
8 I often ignore the big blind to help account for the rake.
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