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Texas Hold'em :
Pot Odds and Implied Odds
How loose can you play? When
is it right to chase those guthots down, those backdoor flushes, and those
overcards? To decide whether it is correct or not you have to understand
odds.
To make money on plays that you are drawing to you need to first make sure
that you think you'll have the best hand if you hit. Besides playing too
many hands, one of the biggest mistakes low limit players make is drawing to
hands that won't win even if they hit so try not to do that.
Here is our example, you are in the big blind in a 10/20 game and an average
player raises from early middle position and three people call. You call
with T9off as well making it four callers total.
The flop comes back:
k - 9 - 2 (rainbow) ~ $80 Pot
He bets, everyone calls. You can call $10 for $110 giving you about 1/11
odds right then. There are two 9's in the deck and three 10's giving you a
total of 5/47 for the turn making it about 1/9.4 or 8.4:1. So IF you think
your hand will win if you hit, you will make money by calling once. If you
plan on calling till the river for it then your chances of hitting would be:
5/47 and 5/46
For figuring out odds for a draw that can hit on either the turn or the
river (keyword either), you need to do something a little more complicated
-- you figure out what the odds are of not hitting it and the subtracting
that number by 1. Since 5 cards give us our hand, there must be 42 that
don't. Then on the river if we haven't hit there must be 41 cards that don't
make our hand.
42/47 * 41/46
This gives us .795, now subtract that from 1 to get the percentage of 20%.
*****Flop to River % = 1 - [ ((47 - Outs) / 47) * ((46 - Outs) / 46) ]
That means to make your call profit you'll need to get better then 1/5, 4:1
return on your money for the WHOLE hand, not just that specific card (turn
or river). That's where implied odds come in. So that means that if the
total cost till the river for you was $70: $20 preflop, $10 flop, $20 turn,
$20 river you'll have to make back something like $280.
If you figure in that you won't be good a lot of the time even when you do
hit, it doesn't make it a good play to go till the river. It would be ok to
call once on the flop to see if you can hit on the turn card but you need to
be careful to not give too much back if the person does still have you beat
with a better hand.
So the bottom line is draw to a winning hand and don't be a sucker and try
to draw on hands in small pots. Also remember that if you have a hand like
the above and he has a hand like AK then you not only have a weaker hand but
a weaker draw. You have the same odds to catch your T as he does his A. That
makes your play even worse if you chase it down.
Let's do one more example so you have a good understanding of odds and
implied odds.
You hold 89s in a $3/6 game on the dealer button. One person raises and 5
people call including you. That means there is ~$36 in the pot already.
The flop comes back: Js 7h 4h.
You have a gutshot to the nuts. Is it worth calling? The first person bets
and two other people call before you. That means there is already $36 + $9 =
$45 in the pot. A gutshot straight has 4 outs (all the Ts) out of 47 cards
for the turn and then 4/46 for the river. To hit it on the turn you'll have
a 1/11 chance. To call $3 for the pot being $45 you'll definitely have the
odds since you'll also make more on later betting rounds if you hit.
The turn brings: Js 7h 4h 6s
Now you have a really nice draw since any T or 5 gives you the nuts (8 outs)
and any spade gives you the flush (9 outs). Two of the spades double for
straight cards. That means for you to improve you have 15/46 which is about
a 33% chance of hitting. If the person bets and even raises in front of you,
you'll still have the odds to call it since even $12 compared to the $60 pot
gives you awesome odds!
Learning to calculate pot odds and implied odds is very important. It
doesn't have to be exact but just a general idea if it is worth it or not is
good enough. You'll rarely be in situations where it is just barely off the
odds. Those don't cost much. What costs a lot is if you rountinely make the
wrong decision when to draw. Also understand that what is currently in the
pot isn't all that matters in calculating odds, what matters is the amount
of money that is in the pot now plus what will be made if you hit your
hand...future bets. This is what implied odds is all about.
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