EV

EV is expected value: what a hand was worth at the moment of the decision, not what it brought in. Aces against kings with all the money in win 82% of the time; EV counts that share of the pot, not the outcome of one hand. Over distance result and EV converge; in one hand or one session they can differ by a hundred dollars either way.

In the sessions EV is counted only where it can be counted exactly: in hands where the money went in before the last card and the cards were shown. An all-in on the turn, two run-outs, a showdown. Everything else, folded hands and pots without a showdown, enters EV at face value, because there is nothing to count. So the gap between result and EV for a session is exactly what the deck did in the open all-ins.

An example from session 8

Result +$124.29, the best of the series. By EV, +$39.89. Two pots reached showdown with my money at stake, 6♦6♥ with a 77% share and 9♣8♣ with 70%, and both fell my way. Eighty-four dollars of difference is what the deck did twice. I did not make the good day.

The same in business

Results and decision quality are kept in separate books. A quarter closed at a profit does not say the decisions were right, and a losing one does not say they were wrong. Whoever keeps only the book of results learns from noise. Whoever keeps the second, where each decision is recorded at what it was worth when it was made, knows a year later whether he is improving or lucky.

The whole hand is in session 8: “A move out of turn says something about you that you did not mean to say”.

The other terms are in the glossary.