After-play practice only. These are fictional exercises with explicitly limited models, not live-hand recommendations or an assessment of poker ability.
Write a prediction before opening the answer.
Choose three questions rather than racing through all twelve. On paper or in a private note, write your answer and the assumption it needs. Open the explanation, mark the specific error if there is one and retry that kind of question in a later session. Correct arithmetic with the wrong model is still a useful mistake to catch.
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Call and bluff prices
01 / The pot was eighteen.
A heads-up river pot contains 18 BB before your opponent bets 6 BB. You may call or fold. There are no deductions, side pots or tournament adjustments. What equity makes calling break even?
Reveal answer 01: price the call
The current pot is 24 BB and the final pot after a call is 30 BB. Calling costs six, so 6 / 30 = 20%. Using 6 / 24 forgets that your call is also part of the final prize. This is a chip-value threshold, not an estimate of your hand's equity.
Review the definition of the current pot if your denominator differed.
02 / Raised to eleven, not by eleven.
The street starts with 12 BB. You bet 3 BB and the opponent raises to 11 BB. No one else is involved. How much must you add, and what is the final pot if you call?
Reveal answer 02: account for the earlier bet
You owe 8 BB. The current pot is 12 + 3 + 11 = 26 BB. Calling creates a 34 BB pot. Under the same simple assumptions as question 01, the threshold is 8 / 34 = 23.5%, rounded.
The three you already bet is inside the pot, not an additional future cost. Keep raise to and raise by distinct in a hand note or overlay.
03 / A flush draw and a promised river.
A fictional flop model has nine target cards among 47 unseen cards. A call would need 25% equity in a no-future-betting model. A friend says, “The draw hits about 35% by the river, so calling is definitely profitable.” What information is missing?
Reveal answer 03: inspect the contract
Will you see both cards without another payment? Are those target cards always winners? Do you win some runouts without hitting? What can the opponent hold? The next-card hit probability is 19.1%; the two-card target-hit probability is 35.0% only under the stated constant-target model.
Neither automatically equals showdown equity. The missing future-betting and range assumptions prevent the confident conclusion. This is a model-identification exercise, not a prescribed fold.
04 / Risk five to win eight.
You make a zero-equity river bluff of 5 BB into 8 BB. The only responses are fold or call, and you always lose when called. How often must the opponent fold? Is that the same as their calling-equity threshold?
Reveal answer 04: separate the two thresholds
The bluff needs 5 / 13 = 38.5% folds. The caller needs 5 / 18 = 27.8% equity. The first balances winning eight against losing five; the second prices a five-chip call against an eighteen-chip final pot.
These thresholds answer different questions. A hand with some equity or showdown value needs a comparison with its alternatives, not just the zero-equity bluff formula.
Range combinations
05 / Two aces are already visible.
You hold the ace of spades and queen of clubs. The board is ace of hearts, seven of diamonds, two of clubs, nine of spades and three of hearts. How many AA, AK and KQs combinations can the opponent physically hold?
Reveal answer 05: remove known cards
AA: 1. AK: 8. KQs: 3. Two aces remain, giving one pair and eight ace-king combinations. The queen of clubs removes the clubs version of suited king-queen. These counts do not tell you how often any combination took the observed betting line.
Review the card-removal walkthrough, then explain why counting matrix squares would not be enough.
06 / Six possible bluffs, but only half bet.
A constructed river range contains eighteen full-weight value combinations and six possible bluff combinations. Each bluff candidate bets at half frequency. Your hand beats every bluff and loses to every value hand. What share of this betting range do you beat?
Reveal answer 06: normalize the weights
The bluff weight is 6 × 0.5 = 3. Total betting weight is 18 + 3 = 21. Your hand beats 3 / 21 = 14.3% of the range. Counting all six as full-weight bluffs would incorrectly produce 25%.
The frequencies were supplied as teaching assumptions. In a real review, their credibility is usually the difficult part.
Short-stack inputs
07 / A familiar-looking chart.
Your recorded spot is five-handed, 4.5 BB at the start before posting, with a 1 BB big-blind ante and a prize jump approaching. The reference is six-max, 5 BB, no ante and chip value only. Is this an exact match?
Reveal answer 07: name the mismatches
No. Table size, depth, ante structure and objective differ. Position and other stacks also need checking. Do not convert “similar cards and a short stack” into an exact reference. Use the comparison as approximate only with the differences stated, or find a matching state.
The compatibility checklist separates matching inputs from claims about solution accuracy.
08 / Where did two blinds go?
A big blind starts with 8,000 chips at 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big-blind ante and posts both in full. How much remains behind? Which posted amount counts toward a live call?
Reveal answer 08: distinguish blind and ante
6,000 chips remain behind. The 1,000 live blind can count toward the call; the ante cannot. The original stack was 8 BB before posting. Neither “8 BB” nor “6 BB” alone is a complete description unless the convention and contributions are clear.
This example does not address short-posting or establish the event's ante-priority procedure.
Tournament equity
09 / A profitable chip gamble.
Use the workshop's three equal 10-unit stacks and $50/$30/$20 prizes. In its no-blinds, no-ties transfer gamble, keeping the state is worth $33.33, winning is worth $43.33 and losing pays $20. Is a 55% win probability enough under standard ICM?
Reveal answer 09: use the correct objective
No, in this model. Using the exact fractions before rounding, the gamble is worth $32.83, or fifty cents less than preserving the state. It still gains one chip in expectation. The prize-value threshold is 57.14%, not 50%.
Revisit the deliberately simplified setup. Those numbers must not be carried into a real pot with different fold, win and loss states.
Results and limits
10 / One trip, two results.
Six entries cost $300 each including fees. Tournament returns total $2,100. Travel and lodging cost another $450. Calculate tournament profit, tournament ROI using entry costs, and trip surplus before other costs or taxes.
Reveal answer 10: label the accounting scope
Entry costs are $1,800. Tournament profit is +$300; tournament ROI is 16.7%. After the specified travel costs, the trip result is −$150. Neither calling the entire trip profitable nor calling the tournament record losing describes all three measures accurately.
Keep the denominator and included costs next to the percentage.
11 / The edit needs a comeback.
A player reaches a precommitted entry limit. The footage has no triumphant ending, and the player considers another entry to recover the loss and improve the episode. What should the editing plan change?
Reveal answer 11: do not finance the story with an exception
Keep the spending limit. Change the story, not the budget. The episode can end with the real outcome, a useful review or a decision to stop. An additional entry is not justified merely by wanting to recover a loss or create a more marketable ending.
This is a boundary-setting exercise, not a prediction about the next tournament.
Vlog judgment
12 / The polished graphic knows too much.
A hand note says the turn bet was “around half pot.” The draft overlay says exactly 3,200, shows an opponent's cards before showdown and labels a made-up percentage as equity. What should change before release?
Reveal answer 12: remove invented precision
Verify the amount or show the credible approximation without inventing chips. Delay the opponent's cards until the appropriate reveal, or explicitly label the sequence as a later reconstruction. Remove the unsupported equity number. Distinguish what happened, what was thought then and what was learned later.
A possible fictional rewrite is: “I remember a bet of roughly half the pot. My exact note is incomplete, so I can explain the question but not give a precise verdict.” See the graphics checklist.
Leave with one repair, not a score.
Classify the most useful miss: pot bookkeeping, probability, range weighting, mismatched inputs, prize model or storytelling. Choose one workshop and write one new example of your own. Retrying an already memorized answer is not the same as explaining a changed situation.
Download the five-session study cycle
References and limits
The linked workshops provide the derivations and external background. All twelve exercises are original fictional teaching cases. Prepared with AI assistance. The answers test the stated calculations and distinctions, not whether you are a winning player. Use away from the table and follow the event's rules.