pot odds

[kurosh]

Why do you use the odds for 2 cards to come when calculating whether to call a bet or not??? You're not going all-in. You have to call a bet on the turn too probably.

Example: You have 9 outs. For two to come, odds are 1.9:1. With one card to come, it's 4.1:1. Someone bets on the flop giving you 3:1 odds and you know they're going to bet on the turn again. Why should you call this? Your real odds are 4.1:1. Or do I have this whole thing wrong??

[uuDevil]

[ QUOTE ]

Example: You have 9 outs. For two to come, odds are 1.9:1. With one card to come, it's 4.1:1. Someone bets on the flop giving you 3:1 odds and you know they're going to bet on the turn again. Why should you call this? Your real odds are 4.1:1. Or do I have this whole thing wrong??

[/ QUOTE ]
If this is a limit Hold'em example, this hand would have to be heads-up between the blinds. This is a rare occurance at least in small stakes games. Even so, if you do call, and you make your hand on the turn, you will probably win extra bets. Those bets will be 2x as big as the flop bet you have to call now. The extra money you win when you make your hand more than makes up for the shortfall in pot odds that you face on the flop. We say you are getting good "implied odds".

[Mike Haven]

i always find it's easiest to get my head round things if i try to make a table of possibilities

let's say it's a $2-$4 game and you are heads up, facing a $2 bet on the flop, which has made the pot $6

you have a four-flush and somehow you know you will win if you hit your draw and lose if you don't

for simplicity let's say it's 4 to 1 to hit both on the turn and the river draws

if you play this same hand 25 times, (we use 25 because if the odds are 4 to 1, that means out of every 5, (4 + 1), events, 4 will lose and 1 will win - if we want to look at two events in a row, (the turn draw and the river draw), then, for 4 to 1 odds, using (5 x 5) = 25 makes the mathematics simple, as below), then:

you will miss on the turn draw 20 times out of the 25;
you will hit on the turn 5 times;
you will miss on the river draw 16 times out of the 20 you missed on the turn;
you will hit on the river 4 times

you will lose ($2 + $4) 16 times = $96
you will definitely win $6 five times = $30
you will definitely win ($6 + $4) 4 times = $40

so your loss is $26 on your 25 hands

this is where the demon gambling enters the fray

you HOPE you will win extra bets on the turn and river when you hit on the turn and you hope to win extra bets on the river when you hit on the river (these relate to your "implied" odds if you hit)

if you think you can win $26 in $4 big bets, or 6.5 big bets per 9 wins, or 0.7 big bets per win, then you should call the first $2 bet

(in reality, it's quite likely that you'll win at least one big bet when you hit on the turn, and as (5 x $4) = $20, you're almost there

(however, of course, in reality, you will hit sometimes and still lose ($2 + $4 + $4) = $10 (or more)

(say this happens 4% of the time you hit your flush, so instead of winning ($30 + $40) you win roughly ($70 x 96%) and lose ($10 x 4%) = $66.80 instead of $70 - you'll probably need to win 7.5 extra big bets out of every 9 of your successful hits to make money on the call)

e & oe

(ps: as usual, i have deviated from the actual question, but it's kind of in there somewhere /images/graemlins/blush.gif )