we’ll be dealing with the “odds against” something happening, which will help you know
whether a decision is “justified” according to the odds or not.
Here’s the main chart again:
For our purposes here, we’ll only be looking at the RIGHT side this time, under the
heading “Odds Against”.
The chart works the same way as before. First you figure out how many OUTS you have.
Then you compare that to the corresponding column… whether the turn card is about to
come or the river card is about to come (or if you want to see BOTH the turn and river
cards together).
For example, if you have 14 outs after the flop, it means the odds against you are 2.36 to
1 on the turn and 2.29 to 1 on the river.
Let’s look at what “odds against” really MEANS. If the odds against you are 4 to 1 (also
written 4:1), that means you will NOT get your card for every four times that you DO get
it. It means you’ll win one out of five times… or 20% of the time.
A lot of people misconstrue 4:1 to mean ¼, but that’s NOT the case. 4:1 equals 1/5. Four
times you lose, one time you win. That means you won ONCE out of FIVE times. It’s
really critical that you “get” this, because it’s a fundamental aspect of poker math.
OK, now when you hear the phrase “pot odds”, it means the odds you have of making
your hand compared with the odds of the betting. The goal is to always be able to
“justify” a call according to the odds… assuming all other things are equal.
For example… let’s say the odds against you are 4:1 and you must decide whether to call
a $5 bet. That means the POT SIZE compared to the BET SIZE should be BIGGER than
4:1. In this case, the bet size is $5, so the pot size would have to be MORE THAN $20 in
order to justify a call.
I just covered a lot of ground there, so let me explain.
If the odds are 4:1, and the hand plays out five times, here’s what would happen (in
terms of probability):
- Lose
- Lose
- Lose
- Win
- Lose
That’s in no particular order, of course. Now, if you lost $5 every time that situation
occurred, that means you’d lose $20 total for the four losses. Still with me?
With that being said, you want to WIN MORE THAN $20 the one time you win… that
way you make a PROFIT. If you win exactly $20, the odds come out even. If you win $21
or more, then the odds are in your favor. If you win $19 or less, the odds are against you.
In poker, you’ll encounter situations dozens of times per hour where you’ll either get the
card or you won’t. Over time, everyone’s odds come back out to “equal”. So that means if
you play the odds in your favor consistently, over the long term you’ll come out on top.
OK, back to the calculations. With odds against you of 4:1, the “1” represents the time
you win, and the “4” represents the times you lose. The “1” represents the BET SIZE that
you must make a decision about. In our scenario it’s $5. The “4” represents the pot size.
Let’s look at a different scenario. Let’s say the odds against you winning are 7:1. You’ve
figured the pot size to be $150. Someone made a $20 bet and the action is to you. Are
the odds in your favor to call or fold?
The answer is to compare 150:20 to 7:1. Which is bigger? 150:20 is equal to 7.5:1, which
is bigger than 7:1. So that means if you played the hand eight times, you’d win once and
lose seven times. That means you’d lose $140 ($20 x 7) but win $150 (the pot size). So
you’d come out on top with a net profit of $10. So yes, you should call.
You’ll know this QUICKLY by simply figuring out if the BETTING ODDS are bigger or
smaller than the HAND ODDS. If the betting odds are bigger, a call is justified. If the
betting odds are smaller, the call is not justified.
All right… let’s do a quick quiz to test your skills. Here’s the “odds against” chart. The
questions come right after it with the answers at the end.
Circle “J” for a justified call, or “U” for an unjustified call. (Ignore “implied odds” if
you’re familiar with them.)
1. A $2 bet on the turn (river card is left) with a $12 pot when you have 7 outs:
J U
2. A $4 bet with an $8 pot after the flop when you have 8 outs:
J U
3. An opponent moves all-in after the flop for 275 chips making the pot 500 while you
have an inside straight draw and the nut flush draw.
J U
(Hint: You have 12 outs.)
4. A $10 bet after the flop with a $65 pot when you have an inside straight draw.
J U
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Here are the ANSWERS…
(1. J 2. U 3. J 4. U)
How’d you do?
If you had trouble with these, just email me at roy @ royrounder dot com and I’ll email you
an explanation of each. But I’ll assume you aced them all for now.
OK, so now you understand how to use “odds against” to calculate pot odds. We’re going
to get back to pot odds soon. But now it’s time to talk about implied odds, discounting
odds, and other related factors to consider in a hand…
No comments:
Post a Comment