Expected value: what each action is really worth
Strategy tells you what to do. Expected value tells you how much it matters — and sometimes the margin between two plays is razor-thin.
Short answer
The correct play is simply the action with the highest expected value in units of your ante. River spots are solved exactly by enumerating every dealer hand; flop and pre-flop spots are simulated with a 95% interval. The explorer below shows the EV of each legal action side by side so you can see how close — or how lopsided — a decision really is.
Expected-value explorer
Choose a spot. The best action is highlighted; each bar is the EV of that action in ante units. Watch how a clear raise dwarfs the alternative, while a marginal spot is nearly a tie.
Why EV, not win rate
Win rate ignores how much is at stake. A hand that wins slightly more than half the time can still be a raise if the raise wins more chips than it risks. EV folds win probability, payout size and bet cost into one comparable number — the only thing you should optimize.
Exact where possible, simulated where necessary
On the river, all community cards are known and only the dealer’s two hidden cards remain, so we enumerate every possibility and the EV is exact. Earlier streets have far too many futures to enumerate, so those EVs are Monte Carlo estimates with a stated margin of error. The explorer labels every result accordingly.
Common questions
What does an EV of −0.30 units mean?
On average that action loses 0.30 times your ante per attempt. If both actions are negative, you pick the one closest to zero — the least-bad option — which on the river is usually to bet rather than fold.
Why is folding usually the worst option?
Because folding on the river forfeits your Ante and Blind outright (EV around −2 units). Betting 1x usually recovers more than that, which is why you bet unless the dealer’s scare outs are overwhelming.
Are these EVs the same as the strategy chart?
Yes — the chart is just the sign of these EVs. The chart tells you which action wins; the explorer shows by how much.