All-In EV in Poker: What the Adjusted Line Really Shows
The adjusted line is the one players screenshot when they want to explain a bad month. It measures something real and very narrow, and the distance between what it covers and what people use it for is where a lot of comfortable thinking happens.
What the line does
Your results graph has a line for money won. The all-in adjusted line runs beside it, usually orange, and answers a narrow question: what if the all-in pots had gone the way the percentages said?
You get it in on the turn with 80 percent equity and a hundred big blinds in the middle. The river kills you and your winnings line drops a hundred. The adjusted line drops twenty, because eighty of those big blinds were, on average, yours.
Do that a few thousand times and the adjusted line shows what the run-outs should have paid you.
The part almost everyone gets wrong
Here's the thing to hold on to. The adjustment only touches hands where the money went in with cards still to come.
That's it. That's the whole scope.
Which means every one of these is invisible to it:
- You flopped the second best hand and paid off three streets
- Your flush draw missed in a pot that never got all in
- You folded the winner to a river bet
- You ran into aces four times in an hour and folded every time
- Every cooler where both players saw all five cards without shoving
All of that is luck, and none of it moves this line. So a player whose two lines sit on top of each other can still have had a genuinely brutal month, and a player with a visible gap can have run well everywhere except one narrow place.
The gap is a measure of one thing. It gets used as a measure of everything.
What a normal gap looks like
| Sample | An ordinary gap |
|---|---|
| 10,000 hands | Several big blinds per hundred, either way. Ignore it |
| 50,000 hands | A couple of big blinds per hundred |
| 200,000 hands | Under a big blind per hundred, usually |
The gap narrows as the sample grows, which is the whole reason it exists. If yours is large over a big sample, check your filters before you conclude anything. A date range that clipped a bad session, or one tournament mixed into cash, will do it.
The one job it does well
Use it to rule an explanation out, which is more useful than it sounds.
You've had a bad stretch. Pull both lines up.
Both falling together. Luck in all-in pots isn't your answer. Something in your game is, and the stats will say where. This is the common case and the one people don't want.
Adjusted line flat or rising while winnings fall. You genuinely lost the coin flips. Still worth checking the stats, but you've ruled out the most likely cause.
Adjusted line falling while winnings hold up. You've been getting away with it. Enjoy the month and don't build a strategy on it.
That's the honest use of this line: a filter on explanations rather than a verdict.
Why it feels more important than it is
Losing an all-in pot is memorable. You saw the percentage on screen, you watched the card land, and there was a precise number attached to what it cost.
Paying off a river with second best is just as expensive and leaves no trace. There was no percentage on screen and no moment to remember. So the graph line that counts the memorable losses gets treated as the story of the month, and the quiet ones get forgotten.
The stats are where the quiet ones show up. If your WTSD is high and your money is going at showdown, that's a bigger hole than any run of coolers.
The short version
Read the gap, believe it, and keep it in its box. It covers all-in pots with cards to come and nothing else. When both lines fall together, stop looking for luck.
For the line people confuse this one with, see the red line. For the idea underneath it, expected value.
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Frequently asked questions
What is all-in EV?
A second line on your results graph showing what you'd have won if every all-in pot had been settled by the percentages instead of by the cards. Get it in as an 80 percent favourite for a 100 big blind pot and it credits you 80 of them, whatever the river did.
What does it mean if my green line is below my EV line?
That you've lost more all-in pots than the odds said you should. It's real, and it's narrower than it sounds. The adjustment only touches hands where the money went in with cards to come, which is a small share of everything that happens to you.
Is all-in EV the same as my true win rate?
No, and treating it that way is the common mistake. It removes one specific kind of luck and leaves every other kind in place. Your adjusted line is still a result, not a measure of how well you played.
How big should the gap be?
Small, over a real sample. A couple of big blinds per hundred hands either way is ordinary. A large gap over tens of thousands of hands is unusual, and worth checking your filters before you conclude anything.
Can I be running badly with no gap at all?
Easily, and this is the part that catches people. Second-best hands, missed draws and coolers where nobody was all in never touch this line. A dreadful month can leave the two lines sitting neatly on top of each other.
Should I use the adjusted line to judge my play?
Only alongside the stats. If both lines are falling together, luck isn't your answer and something in your game is. That's the most useful thing this line does: rule an explanation out.
Why do different trackers show slightly different EV numbers?
Because they calculate equity at different moments, usually the last point where money went in. Small differences between tools are normal and not worth chasing.