Poker: Imaginary Money – Part 2

• 30.06.2025 3:22 pm
• headhunter
• 0 Comments

G-bucks

In the first part of these two part series, you learned widely on the Sklansky dollars. You were taught on how to equate a dollar to any poke outcome possibility. This idea will prove to be ideal when you want to evaluate post session play. This is because you will have a dollar to compare with amount dollars of the real money.

The major drawback to this method is its inability to be made use of in a moment. For instance:

You make a pre flop raise $50, before you are re raised by your opponent for$300. You already made a read on your opponent and you are convinced that his hand is a top pocket pair, while you have a hand like A§ K§.

Versus Hand	Your Equity	Your Sklansky Bucks
	12%	-$178
	34%	-$46
	46%	$26
	46%	$26

Like in the table above, by using the dollar concept only, you will not be able to play until you accurately tell on your opponent's hand. If your opponent's hand is a JJ, you will only make money if you call, incase they have AA, calling will lose you Sklansky money.

In real poker, the only thing you can do is range your opponent and then pick up on small details to lower the ranges. The G-bucks technique works almost in the same way as the Sklansky one but, with G-bucks, you will be able to trench your hand aligned to your opponents range.

How to calculate G-bucks

Calculating G-bucks is a bit more complicated that calculating the Sklansky bucks.

1. You first of all need to place your hand's equity against your opponent's range of hands. Remember that G-bucks calculated range value, thus you need to use the opponent's hand equity. Using the chart above this will mean:

= 88%

= 66%

= 54%

= 54%

2The next thing you need to evaluate is the likelihood of your getting dealt at in every hand of the range. For instance, there are 16 AK that are of different combinations and this includes the off suits and the suits, with only 6 pocket pair combinations. Remember that your hand is not included in these figures. When calculating range G-bucks over a certain hand, you have to use these figures. In order to calculate the G-bucks of a hand over that of the range, you must remove the variants; that is leaving 3 aces combination, and 3 king's combinations.

After that, you should multiply the hand equity with the number of combination hands in each hand:

You then add the above together and then divide the value by number of combo hands in that range:

: 0.88*3 = 2.64

: 0.66*3 = 1.98

: 0.54*6 =3.24

: 0.54*6 =3.24

(2.64 + 1.98 + 3.24 + 3.24) / (3 + 3 + 6 + 6)

11.1 / 18 = 0.616

The solution is the percentage the range has over your hand. Since you need to calculate your hand's G-bucks, as opposed to the range, all you have to do is minus 62% from the whole 100% and you will be left with your hand's equity at 38%.

With your equity, you can now be able to calculate your G-bucks for calling. Have it in your mind that the pot worth is at $600 and it will cost you $250 to make a call.  This means that you need to multiply $600 with your equity of 0.38 to get $228.

Your share of the pot is $228. Now you need to minus your call investment of $250, and you will be left with your hand's G-bucks at $22. This is to mean that every time you call, you stand to lose $22.

Calculating G-bucks is a lot of work. It is even more work if your opponent's range is something like a set, two hearts in any hand, two pair, overpair, or an open ended.

In order to make it easier for you especially if your opponent's range involves a lot of hands, there are poker calculators that can help you get your hand equity over the range. You can always use the G-bucks concept when playing to get a clue on whether calling will be of =+EV or –EV.

For instance, you can tell when you are close to coin flip with both QQ and JJ, with odds at 2:1 to KK or 8:1 to AA. Incase you are not sure of the exact numbers you will be able to tell that you fall behind AA, KK and you are a coin flip to JJ and QQ. Seeing that your odds are at 1.4:1 on your cash, it will look like the odds are insufficient to make up for lagging behind the half of the range.

You need to practice on these calculations as it is the only way you will be able to make right guesses at the table. You do not have to be a math genius to play poker, but you have to be a poker math genius to succeed at poker.

By putting your opponents on a five hands range, and realizing that you can only beat one of those five hands, the best thing would be folding. There are instances where your opponent's range is weak and you can call with a bad hand because your bad hand is above most of your opponent's range.

There are also times when your opponent's range includes one or two hands that are stronger than yours; you can still make money by playing against the whole range. You should never place your opponent on single strong or weaker hands.

Make use of the two concepts to know where you are likely to make or lose money.