Implied and Discounted Odds giving me trouble....

[Warder]

Hi everybody,
I'm relatively new to this forum and Hold'em in general. I recently purchased Internet Texas Hold'em and I'm reading that as my first book(Is this a good first book?). I'm having a difficult time grasping Implied Odds and Discounted Odds. Is this pretty much just a judgement call or is there a science behind applying these concepts? It just seems like a lot to consider in such a short amount of time.... is there some secret to doing these that I'm missing? Any advice/examples you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot

[Dave H.]

I started a thread entitled "Confused about odds in Holdem" just yesterday on this forum. It should be easy to find. There were lots of responses. It probably deals with some questions you may have. I'm a beginner too so I can sort of understand what some of your questions may be regarding odds. Check out the thread. Some of it might be confusing, but if you make it through all the responses, you'll probably gain a lot. One of my responses in this post shows clearly that I finally understood! A lot of people here go out of their way to help us learn.

Good Luck.

[gaming_mouse]

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Internet Texas Hold'em and I'm reading that as my first book(Is this a good first book?).

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Warder,

I'm not familiar with this book, but by far the best book you can get is "Small Stakes Holdem" by Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller. It is somewhat difficult reading, but will pay off your efforts in spades.


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Is this pretty much just a judgement call or is there a science behind applying these concepts? It just seems like a lot to consider in such a short amount of time....

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First, no, it is not an exact science, because you have to estimate future action. However, it is an approximate science. As far as it being alot to consider, this is nothing. As you improve your game, you will be considering that as well as many other factors all within a few seconds. Knowing the current pot odds, the number of players likely to call a bet, the chance of raise, the chance of your own handing improving -- all this will become second nature. This doesn't require innate mathematical talent so much as it requires LOTS of practice. After you've played 100,000 hands, the same archetypal situations come up and again and again, and the calculations become second nature. A book like SSH gives you a good sense of what many of those archetypal situations are.

HTH,
gm