Originally Posted by Marm

EV is expected value. For every action you take in poker (or life) there are a set of outcomes that can be expected, each with a different probability of occurence. And each of these outcomes has a different return, or reward.

You take the sum of the outcomes times each probability to figure an action's EV.

Example. You have a certain action that 60% of the time will lose 3 units, but 40% of the time you will win 8 units. So:

.60 x -3 = -1.8 units
.40 x 8 = 3.2 units
Sum EV= 1.4 units.

This means, in this example, that every time you do this certain act, you profit 1.4 units, regardless of the actual outcome. In poker, you need to strive to make only Positive EV moves, and not negative EV plays. I consider a -EV move that results in a larger +EV situation later to be an overall +EV play (ex bluffing and showing for advertising value).

If you do a search and dig through a lot of the crap (Like "I think this play is +EV") , you can find quite a few examples of how EV is applied to scenarios.

Originally Posted by mik1w

EV is what your profits will tend to in the long run. make a play with +$1 five times and you might lose $5 (per hand average), make it 1000 times and make $2, play it 1,000,000 times and youll get $1.1, ect. Its a way of eliminating the "luck" factor of the shuffle