Posts Tagged ‘Pot’

Free Poker Online Swift Quick Guide To Implied Odds And How You Use Simple Math To Calculate Them

In this free poker lessons online article we look at the poker math area of implied odds and how you can use it when playing tight aggressive poker.

In the last 2 articles we looked at Outs and Pot Odds. See the link at the bottom of this page to find them.

Pot odds are of most use where there is no future play in a hand, that is you are in the final win or lose stage. For spots where there’s future play, there’s another (slightly) more complex concept, called implied odds.

Working out implied odds is trying to figure how much value our hand may have in the future if we hit it.

Lets look at an example using deep stacks.

> Let’s say we’re HU against an opponent and we’re each 10,000bbs deep and have 9 flush outs.

> Our opponent raises to 3bb preflop and we call.

> We flop a 4 flush.

> Our opponent bets pot (6bb).

> We have only an 18% or so chance to hit on the Turn if our 9 flush outs are good and we have pot odds of 1-1 so by Pot Odds we should fold.

Implied odds, however, are attempting to estimate our future value when we do hit.

> Let’s say we call and hit the turn.

> On the turn, our opponent bets pot again (now 18bb, 6bb due to preflop action plus his 6bb bet on the flop and our 6bb call).

> We flat again.

> The opponent pots River, that’s 54bb now and you raise to 150bb and get called by the opponents Top Pair.

While you didn’t have pot odds to call at the flop you did so anyway for the possibility of winning a much bigger pot if you hit at the turn or river due to your opponents bets.

Against an opponent who will be aggressively betting the turn and river a high percentage of the time, we can definitely call the flop bet (and maybe even the turn bet) even when we know we don’t have the best hand.

> 300bb pot win on the river.

> That’s

> 50:1 on our money, and we only needed

But this is how implied odds is an imperfect science.

In our specific example we got 50 to 1, but say the opponent pots turn and river with any hand, but only calls our river raise with top pair.

> Let’s also say our opponent has top pair 20% of the time (just making up a number here).

If that’s the case, our calculation grows more complex.

> On the turn our opponent puts in another 18bbs every time, and on the river our opponent puts in another 54bbs every time, but our raise to 150 is only called 20% of the time.

> Which means that the value of our raise is 30bbs (150x.2).

> So long term, we have to call 6bbs on the flop to win 102bbs (18 on turn + 54 on river bet + 30 from our river raise).

Your implied odds now are not 50 to 1 but 102:6, or 17 to 1. 4:1 we needed to call the flop, so it’s still profitable of course.

But actually the estimations are far more cloudy.

> Let’s say our opponent is just betting the turn with top pair and is turning off at the river with no top pair top kicker?

> Or our opponent is betting top pair on the turn only 70% of the time and is betting the turn as a bluff 15% of the time (with his bluff range)?

> It’s not really possible to sit at the table (or at your computer) looking to estimate the precise implied odds of a play.

At best implied odds are an estimate, and that means never perfect. Whereas pot odds are simple definite math concept.

To try and more accurately “guess” implied odds, we need to think about our opponent’s tendencies (as usual).

> If our opponent is loose and aggressive, our implied odds are usually much higher than our direct odds.

> If our opponent is tight and nitty, our implied odds and direct odds are usually closer.

Overall the idea of implied odds tells us that it is often profitable to draw even if you do not have the direct pure odds to do so.

We have to estimate our implied odds to understand what the “genuine” cutoff is for when chasing our draws is mathematically unprofitable, but this is good guessing in the best case and requires plenty of training to be even OK at.

Fundamentally it is about figuring an opponents range accurately and being able to assess with decent accuracy what he or she will do at each step of a hand with that range, so yes, not easy!

If you have grasped everything up to this stage, you’re doing pretty good. In the next free online poker lesson we’ll look at reverse implied odds.

Alternatively you can go and check out my much longer full lesson on poker math with Calculating Outs, implied odds, reverse implied odds and more at the NoPayPOKER.com free poker online games training blog where you will discover all and get a link to a helpful pro if you’re stuck.

How effective is pot control?

Why pot control is an essential part of the game

Article written by best selling author Carl “The Dean” Sampson

In deep stack situations in no limit hold’em cash games then pot control is an essential part of the game. This is because there are times where your hand strength simply does not merit the pot becoming too large. Like for example if you open raise with A-Js and both blinds call you. The flop comes A-Q-6 with two suits and you c-bet and get two callers. The turn card is the 9h which doesn’t make the flush but you bet again and you get called again by both players. The river card is the 4h which still doesn’t put the flush on board but the small blind bets the pot……what do you do?

Well a pre-flop raise begins the process of defining the hand because you are already starting to escalate the pot. You raise before the flop for different reasons but one of those reasons whether you realise it or not is to build the pot. This is fine if you have the best hand or can get your opponent out of the pot with them having the best hand because in both cases you make money. But these pots are usually small to medium pots but when the pot escalates with you having just one or two pair and it looks like it is shaping up for an all-in situation then this is where you can start to have problems.

However your stronger opponents will suspect that when you check that you are slipping into pot control mode because they have seen you either keep on betting when you have the goods or keep on betting when you are bluffing. Pot control is a very effective strategy for novice and intermediate players because it prevents them from making very big mistakes in escalated pots. This is a pivotal stage for novice players because the biggest leak for them at the outset of their poker lives is that they make big errors in deep stacked situations too frequently. So when you play at higher levels then you need to mix up your play by value betting on lighter holdings so that your opponents cannot exploit a polarised range.

Why not play poker with Carl at www.pokerstars.co.uk

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Why many poker players just never master no limit cash games

Want to know why many poker players just never master no limit cash games?

Article written by best selling author Carl “The Dean” Sampson

One of the biggest reasons why nearly all poker players fail when they try and move up from micro and low stakes games into the middle stakes levels is that for the first time they are playing against thinking opponents. In many instances then their opponents are not only thinking on a much deeper level but they are also capable of highly complex thought processes. Now before we go any further then I am not saying that low stakes poker players do not think because they do.

It is that they think about very simple things. They think about what hand they are holding and what hand their opponent could be holding. They think about pot odds and implied odds; they think about position and rakeback and sign up bonuses. They may even think about stack sizes and how to deceive their opponents. So these people are thinking about all these things and this kind of makes them decent poker players. However this is nowhere near deep enough because the players who think at these levels are not thinking deeply enough to combat higher levels or play and better opponents when playing poker becomes a totally different game.

A clear example can be seen by the following hand situation. Our hero raises from the cut-off with 9c-7c because he has a decent hand and he has position. He can also win the pot in numerous ways by flopping a big hand or a big draw or by being able to represent a big pair as the pre-flop raiser. The big blind calls him and the flop comes 4-4-3 rainbow. His opponent checks and our hero bets. He thinks that he only has one opponent to get past to win the pot; he also thinks that this board is unlikely to have hit his opponent. He also thinks that he may be able to fire another barrel on the turn and win the pot that way.

In short then he is thinking lots of different things and so in no way is he not thinking. However what he may not be realising is that his opponent has noticed his playing pattern of nearly always raising pre-flop and the c-betting the flop. So in this instance then our observant opponent check-raises him and forces our hero to fold. When it gets really interesting is when you know that your opponent is a multi-level thinker. Then when they play back at you like this then you can four bet them with light holdings because you know that they are three betting you light also. But this is when playing situations becomes the primary objective and playing cards comes a distant second.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk