SSHE Book Club Discussion - Part One: Gambling Concepts

[MEbenhoe]

This section should be mostly review for anyone who has read TOP, and I'm not sure that I'd advocate reading this book without reading TOP first. Because of this fact I'm expecting that there won't be too many questions or a ton of discussion on this first section. If there are any please still post them.

So to build conversation if you're participating in this book discussion maybe a nice little intro and background on your poker playing would be a nice way to kick things off.

As for myself:

My name is Matt, and I'm a 2nd year student at UW La Crosse. I'd played a lot of poker in HS (mostly stud and draw), but was first introduced to HE in college. I've been a winning player at the $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 6 max games as well as all limits from $0.25/$0.50 to $5/$10 of full ring games online. My B&M experience is somewhat limited. The only games I've played are the $3/$6 and $4/$8 games at Canterbury, which I've been pretty successful at also.

Well I'm hoping this book club will get good participation. Just as a refresher here's the schedule again that I posted about a week ago:

Part One: Gambling Concepts.....Nov 29-Nov 30

Part Two: Preflop Play.....Dec 1-4

Part Three: Postflop Concepts (Intro - Evaluating the Flop:Drawing Hands).....Dec 5-8

Part Three: Postflop Concepts (Large Pots vs Small Pots - Afterthought).....Dec 9-12

Part Four: River Play.....Dec 13-16

Part Five: Miscellaneous Topics.....Dec 17-18

Part Six: Hand Quizzes.....Dec 19-....

[Twitch1977]

I'll kick in a little background about myself. I started playing poker in July when a friend gave me $10 on Paradise. I started at .02/.04 games and have moved up the limits (.02/.04 -> .05/.10 -> .10/.20 -> .25/.50 -> .50/1) following the 300x BB rule for bankroll management and I'm now playing .50/1 and having a bit of a crappy run.

Hard to find a decent game on Paradise for .50/1 it seems, all the tables with a high % of players seeing the flop has a huge waiting list. Plus it seems like every time I get a seat at a good table Paradise decides it's time to reboot the server /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Anyhow looking forward to the discussion hope it goes better then ITH book club did.

T

[As Zehn]

I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[maryfield48]

41 years old, been playing a bit of poker on & off since high school, started a weekly home game about a year and a half ago, and started reading and taking it more seriously since then. Have worked up to from .25/50 (couldn't handle the nano-limits for very long, not the quality of play or anything, just not enough at stake to be enjoyable) to $1/$2. With 3 kids and a job I don't get to play as much as I'd like.


[ QUOTE ]
I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that it is based on your chance of winning the pot, expressed as a %. The simple example used in the book, IIRC, is having four to a flush on the flop (using both your hole cards, or if only using one, it is the Ace). In that situation you will make your flush by the river 35% of the time. Assuming your flush will win, you have 35% of every chip that goes in to the pot. Hence 35% pot equity. Once you have at least two opponents calling, you are making money off every bet.

[As Zehn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that it is based on your chance of winning the pot, expressed as a %. The simple example used in the book, IIRC, is having four to a flush on the flop (using both your hole cards, or if only using one, it is the Ace). In that situation you will make your flush by the river 35% of the time. Assuming your flush will win, you have 35% of every chip that goes in to the pot. Hence 35% pot equity. Once you have at least two opponents calling, you are making money off every bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you claculate the 35%?

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you claculate the 35%?

[/ QUOTE ]

Odds of one more of your suit coming by the river. The math whizzes will correct me, but, any of 9 cards make your flush (remaining cards of your suit).

There are 47 unknown cards (52 minus your hole cards & flop). 38 out of 47 cards don't help on the turn, and 37 out of 46 don't help on the river.

The odds of hitting one of your suit by the river are 1-(38/47*37/46)
=1-0.65
=.35
=35%

The math nerds can also explain why it doesn't work by using the cards that help instead of the cards that don't (i.e. 9/47*9/46), but just know that it doesn't, so don't do it that way. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Cheers,
Peter

[Svenungson]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you claculate the 35%?

[/ QUOTE ]

How to determine the chances of making a hand is explained in chapter 3. For now just accept that it is appr. 35% chance that you will make a flush by the river if you have four to a flush on the flop. If you are curious you might want to look it up.

Who am i? Im a 25 year old student who have played poker for 4 years, first 3.5 years very infrequently and very badly. Have just recently (and partly due to the book we are discussing) realized that poker is best played aggressivly. All in all my poker account shows red figures but i am working my way up. For those of you who think my spelling or grammar is weird, i am from Sweden so engligh is not my native language.

[Toonces]

OK...some quick background on me: I've been playing Hold'em for 10 years, but only seriously been studying the game for about 18 months now. Online, I play up to the $3/$6 normally, and in B&M rooms, I'll play $5/$10 in Vegas but up to $20/$40 in the weaker midwestern card rooms. In the past year, I've been profitable both in my online play and especially in B&Ms. Before that, I played too infrequently to know for sure.

However, I wanted to discuss a concept on p. 31. Ed is discussing how to play against an opponent who has 4 outs in an 11-bet pot. The player will probably call anyway, so you want it to be two bets to the player so that he will call unprofitably. Ed says:
[ QUOTE ]
Much of your profit in small stakes games comes from players who call when they should fold with weak hands. Small stakes hold'em is often a game of attacking players with weak draws.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly, if you know that if he's going to call two bets, the raise is right, based on the theory that you benefit when your opponent makes a mistake. But what if you knew that he would correctly call one bet and correctly fold two bets. Well, you can create situations either way, based on how many of the other 47 outs favor you vs. the bettor (i.e. whether or not you want overcalls here). But I think that as a general rule, you would still want to raise.

The reason that I say that is that by calling, you leave your opponent with a choice between a +EV call and a 0 EV fold. If you raise, he chooses between a -EV call and a 0 EV fold. Even if he makes the proper call each time, he is in a worse situation EV wise than he was before. Now whether the difference in EV goes to you or the bettor depends on the particular situation, but as a group, your EV improves even when your opponent does not make a mistake, I believe.

Conclusion: While raising does increase the chance that your opponent makes a mistake, the goal is not necessarily to get your opponent to make a mistake, but to lower the EV of even his best available choice.

Thoughts?

[Toonces]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by negative pot equity. Pot equity is always positive, unless you are drawing dead, in which case it is zero. Dead money, in this context, is referring to the money already in the pot, possibly by opponents who have now folded, that you are entitled to a share of.

Negatives do come into the scene when you are thinking of whether or not to fold. If you fold, you "lose" whetever pot equity you have. You have to compare that to the increase of pot equity you get by calling, subtracted by the cost of the bet.

For example, the pot is 6 bets, and the chance of you winning heads-up is 10%. If you fold, you lose 0.6 of pot equity. If you call a bet, you gain 0.1 of pot equity (1 bet * 10%) but lose a full bet, for an overall cost of 0.9.

[LALDAAS]

Toonces that was an excellent post. I personally have yet to read POT yet, However I have read SSH about six times. Gambling concepts was a strugle section for me. Toonces post cleared up page 31. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I am 26 and went to a bachleor party for my girls cousin they kicked off the night with a Hold'em turney.....BOOM! I'm hooked. After losing my arse, I made a promise to my self that I would study the game inside and out. After 4 months of hardcore studing and constant playing, I just bought PokerTracker wow great program and Online I am showing a modest profit and my friends fear me.

Thank you very much Ed Miller and all of you here at 2+2!

Also to MEbenhoe great Idea for a thread I enjoy this one.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
Clearly, if you know that if he's going to call two bets, the raise is right, based on the theory that you benefit when your opponent makes a mistake. But what if you knew that he would correctly call one bet and correctly fold two bets. Well, you can create situations either way, based on how many of the other 47 outs favor you vs. the bettor (i.e. whether or not you want overcalls here). But I think that as a general rule, you would still want to raise.

The reason that I say that is that by calling, you leave your opponent with a choice between a +EV call and a 0 EV fold. If you raise, he chooses between a -EV call and a 0 EV fold. Even if he makes the proper call each time, he is in a worse situation EV wise than he was before. Now whether the difference in EV goes to you or the bettor depends on the particular situation, but as a group, your EV improves even when your opponent does not make a mistake, I believe.

Conclusion: While raising does increase the chance that your opponent makes a mistake, the goal is not necessarily to get your opponent to make a mistake, but to lower the EV of even his best available choice.

Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you know your opponent will make the correct fold and the correct call, depending on whether you raise or call, you determine whether to call or raise based on whether you'll have a higher EV with him folding to your raise, or with him overcalling, taking into account the extra bet that you have to put in for the raise.

For this example we'll assume that their is no betting on the river in order to simplify things. If the pot on the turn is 10 BBs and Player A bets, you are left with the choice of calling and giving Player C proper odds for an overcall or raising and giving him improper odds for a call. Again we assume he'll make the proper call. Now lets break it down.

Say if he calls You have 50% chance of winning the pot, the Player C has 9% and the Player A has a 41% chance. This means in the resulting 12 BB pot your EV is 6 BB Player C is 1.08 BB and the Player A is 4.92 BB. On the other hand say if you raise Player C folds and this causes your chance of winning the pot to go up to 55% and Player A goes up to 45%. In this case your EV in the now 13 BB pot is 7.15 BB and Player A is 5.85. In this case it is clearly correct to raise.

Now lets look at a spot where it wouldn't be. Same situation except now if you call causing Player C to call, Player A has a 58% chance of winning the pot, you have a 33% chance and Player C has a 9% chance. In this case Player A has an EV of 6.96, you have 3.96 and Player C again has 1.08.

Now say if you raise causing him to fold this changes the chances of winning to Player A having a 65% chance and you having a 35% chance. In this 13 BB pot Player A has an EV of 8.45 and you have an EV of 4.55. In this case it would be incorrect for you to call. However if instead of 35% your chance of winning the pot by his fold went up to at least 39% this raise would be correct. Understand why?

So basically whether raising or going for the overcall is correct in this spot depends entirely on whether or not raising increases your pot equity by an amount greater than or equal to your raise. Thoughts/Questions?

[Toonces]

I agree with your example, MEbenhoe. In your example, Player C earns +0.08 in EV by calling 1 bet over folding. If B raises and C folds, A & B combined earn .08 in EV thanks to the fold, but often only one of them would gain EV and the other would lose EV depending on:

1) The number of outs earned from Player C. The fewer outs you earn from player C, the more likely for the raise to be -EV.

2) Whether you were a favorite to begin with. The heavier of an underdog you are, the more likely for the raise to be -EV.


On the other hand, when player C makes a bad call after you raise, he goes from a +.08 EV to a -.65 EV, a difference of 0.73 in EV. Players A and B earn 9x the profit that they did from when player C folded to the raise. And, in this case, all Player A and B need is to have over a 33.3% chance of winning to profit from C's mistake. And this confirms Ed's hypothesis that the biggest profits are made when bad players make bad calls.

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
For those of you who think my spelling or grammar is weird, i am from Sweden so engligh is not my native language.

[/ QUOTE ]

As long as you promise never to jump up and start shouting DAAAAAAAAAAAAH! we'll be fine. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, when player C makes a bad call after you raise, he goes from a +.08 EV to a -.65 EV, a difference of 0.73 in EV. Players A and B earn 9x the profit that they did from when player C folded to the raise. And, in this case, all Player A and B need is to have over a 33.3% chance of winning to profit from C's mistake. And this confirms Ed's hypothesis that the biggest profits are made when bad players make bad calls.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never said this wasn't true. I was going along with the assumption from your original post that Player C wouldn't make incorrect calls. In this situation you don't always make the most money by raising.

[AtlChip10]

Greetings all, I'm looking forward to gaining some valuable insight through this discussion. I've read SSHE a few times already, but there are a lot of areas I don't fully understand and/or apply.

As for my introduction, I am a 23 year old college student from Milwaukee. I had played a small amount of draw poker in high school, but had never played any of the other forms. This past February I came across the 2K3 WSOP episodes, and was introduced to the wonderful game of Texas Hold'em. I began playing a little on Yahoo, and then opened a play money account on Poker Room. After a week or so of messing around there, I read the notorious Hellmuth book, and was convinced I had the game all figured out. I then deposited $50 into Poker Stars, playing the $0.02/$0.04 and $0.05/$0.10 games for a couple weeks, losing a third of my bankroll of course. Realizing I had a lot to learn, I went back to the book store and purchased HEPFAP and TOP. After digesting what I could from those books, trolling these forums, and playing whenever I could; I finally posted my first winning month in May, netting an amazing 5 bucks (I was honestly stoked). Since then I have read every 'good' book I could get my hands on, studied my game intensely using PT, and continued to take in all that I could from these forums. The result has been very rewarding, as I now 4-table 3/6 and 5/10 online while playing 5/10 B&M (about 10 theoretical sessions away from having the cash roll for 10/20). I have progressed from a Tight/Passive break even player, to a Tight/Aggressive player with a good but not great win rate. I hope that going through SSHE with all of you will plug some more leaks and allow me to progress some more through the tougher limits. More specifically I hope to realize when it is correct to play aggressively with my mediocre hands and draws, as my W$SD % suggests I may be folding potential winners too much.

I'm also hoping that this discussion will get me into the habit of posting more with this community, as I have only sporadically made the effort of contributing up to this point. Cheers.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]

How do you claculate the 35% [pot equity]?


[/ QUOTE ]

If i'm not misunderstanding, pot equity is estimated far far far more often than it's literally calculated. In order for it to be calculated precisely, you would have to have a very cut-and-dried hand. But even with the most straightforward outs calculation imaginable, there's a tiny chance that a small pair might slip through and win. So you're never calculating precise pot equity.

In reality an underlying theme in Ed's book is that you rarely know exactly how many outs you have, but you always have information you can use to estimate. And any reasonable discussion about pot equity has to recognize that we throw around numbers like 35% because they make these concepts easy to talk about. In my mind at least, it's far more useful to talk about estimates like "about one-third." You're always making some sort of implicit assumptions about the probability one or two pair will win, subject to experience, game texture, etc.

Comments?

[Toonces]

[ QUOTE ]
I never said this wasn't true. I was going along with the assumption from your original post that Player C wouldn't make incorrect calls. In this situation you don't always make the most money by raising.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't mean to imply that I disagreed with you. When C folds to a raise, A and B combined make 0.08 in EV, so it's easy to be on the losing end of that raise.

I just also wanted to point out that when C calls the raise, it's a lot more likely that A and B both profit.

[Ed Miller]

Comments?

Thank you for taking the time to post this. This is a hugely important point.

[fred22]

I've read the chapter and understand it.

What I am curious about is how often do you all actually calculate pot equity, implied odds etc etc when you are actually playing or do you just rely on the instinct that you have developed by all the reading, learning and playing that you've done. I mean after a while, the situations that arise pretty much the same ,ie flush draw, straight draw etc etc

I would think it would be especially difficult to do when you multitable, but I really am curious about the real life thought process that the top pros go through when actually playing vs learning. Instinctive or Analytical during actual play?

Thanks!

[GFunk911]

[ QUOTE ]
However, I wanted to discuss a concept on p. 31. Ed is discussing how to play against an opponent who has 4 outs in an 11-bet pot. The player will probably call anyway, so you want it to be two bets to the player so that he will call unprofitably. Ed says:
[ QUOTE ]
Much of your profit in small stakes games comes from players who call when they should fold with weak hands. Small stakes hold'em is often a game of attacking players with weak draws.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly, if you know that if he's going to call two bets, the raise is right, based on the theory that you benefit when your opponent makes a mistake. But what if you knew that he would correctly call one bet and correctly fold two bets. Well, you can create situations either way, based on how many of the other 47 outs favor you vs. the bettor (i.e. whether or not you want overcalls here). But I think that as a general rule, you would still want to raise.

The reason that I say that is that by calling, you leave your opponent with a choice between a +EV call and a 0 EV fold. If you raise, he chooses between a -EV call and a 0 EV fold. Even if he makes the proper call each time, he is in a worse situation EV wise than he was before. Now whether the difference in EV goes to you or the bettor depends on the particular situation, but as a group, your EV improves even when your opponent does not make a mistake, I believe.

Conclusion: While raising does increase the chance that your opponent makes a mistake, the goal is not necessarily to get your opponent to make a mistake, but to lower the EV of even his best available choice.

Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

My thought is THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! You would be AMAZED at how many posters don't get that, and not only do you obviously understand it, but you did an outstanding job of explaining it. I will be linking to your post in the future when talking about this concept. I hear things like "well, if I bet, my (drawing) opponent is not making a mistake to call, so according to Sklansky's TOP, I won't bet," and for the first time I truly understand how misapplied poker knowledge can be a truly dangerous thing. Awesome post.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
As for my introduction, I am a 23 year old college student from Milwaukee.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh my wonderful hometown. I'm currently in La Crosse for college though. I have to say I've been surprised by the amount of 2+2ers in the WI and MN area. I think sometime in the future a massive meet up should be in order, or possibly a 2+2 WI vs MN battle. Either way glad to have another WI guy on the boards.

[paperboy]

I just started playing a couple of months ago to see what my kids would be getting into. SSHE has improved my game considerably. Having this discussion with the author involved is just wonderful.

[johnnybeef]

Hi all,

My name is John (in case you haven't figured that out yet). I live in Columbus Ohio, and i am 24 yrs old. I've been playing poker for about 4 years or so, however for the first 3 i had gills. Like MEBenhoe said, most of this chapter is review for those who have read TOP like myself. However the one theory that was not included in TOP was that of pot equity. That being said, pot equity is something that i understand how to compute, however i am still very much in the grey as how to apply it.

[johnnybeef]

Alright,

i went back and reread the section on pot equity. I am going to present how i understood it, would someone please comment on if it is correct or not:

Pot Equity is a concept that is used to determine whether or not a raise is mathematically correct in a multiway pot.

An Example: Assume you see a flop with 3 other opponents that contains 10 bets. Also assume that you will win this pot 35% of the time whereas your other opponents will win 25%, 25%, and 15% respectively. Because you have the highest pot equity the correct play in this case is to raise.

Is this correct? Also from my estimation this is not so much a concept that is literally calculated at the table, moreover it is a theory that determines the correctness in such plays as raising your strong draws for value.

Furthermore, for those that are struggling with the principle of reverse implied odds, reverse implied odds define the reason why it is sometimes correct to fold the current best hand in a small pot, i.e. you see the flop with a three bet pot with 33 and the board is Jc Tc 7h.

Good luck everybody
John

[DonkeyKong]

Johnny,

no that isn't quite right.

you need to convert the percentages to dollars to determine the dollar value of your hand and then compare that to the cost of the next bet.

you may be an underdog at 10% but if the next bet is $3 and the pot is $40, your hand is worth $4 ($40 x 10%) so you should call.

also, it doesn't matter if its multiway or heads-up.

the best way to think about it in my opinion is to think about how much on average your hand is worth if you played it vs a weighted average of your opponents range of hands.

For example, if the board is T/images/graemlins/club.gif7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gif and your opponent has bet into you, there is a range of hands you might put this player on. It doesn't really matter what he actually holds, it matters what he could hold here.

Your 'pot equity' is higher if you have AT then if you have QT because your opponent could very well have KT or QT. AT still loses to something like a set of sevens but if you were in this hand repeatedly, AT would win money against the range of hands your opponent could have.

Now the pot gets especially important on marginal situations. Say you have QT. QT is a good hand if the pot is big but its borderline if the pot is small.

The important takeaway from SSH is that when you fold, you are forefeiting your equity so... don't do it if your hand has winning chances and the pot is big. if the pot is small, folding a marginally profitable situation is a small mistake --- but folding a hand with winning chances in a big pot for one extra bet can be a big mistake.

[Derek in NYC]

The point about estimating your pot equity for most hands seems to come about because you necessarily must make simplifying assumptions about what the ultimate winning hand on the river will be.

Ed shows you a complex version of this calculation on page 187, note 76. As you can see from Ed's example, a true pot equity calculation appears to go beyond broad simplifying assumptions like "a flush will hit 2:1 by the river, so my pot equity on the flop is 35%".

Implicit in Ed's example, is that your pot equity calculation must consider not only your hand, but also the hands your opponents hold, and what they are likely to be drawing to.

While Ed's example makes sense when I read it, how many of us can actually make those calculations on the fly? Is there an easy way of estimating pot equity possibly from pattern recognition of flops?

Discuss.

[twankerr]

[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion: While raising does increase the chance that your opponent makes a mistake, the goal is not necessarily to get your opponent to make a mistake, but to lower the EV of even his best available choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

This concept is laid out subtledly in the book, possibly a little to subtledly. I believe there is a quiz hand in the book (I'll have to search it out) where we are presented with two -EV situations and forced to pick the one that minimizes our damage.

I think the situation where the opponent has +EV no matter what his choice is comes up often in poker, especially given the amount of multi-way pots in small stakes. I just really thought I liked the way you worded that passage, and decided to re-emphasize it.

[pistol78]

Hey All, I also am a 22yr old college student in the Chicago area, have been playing poker semi-seriously for about a year now. I haven’t really looked into my game as deeply as I would like to but I feel that the time has come and I really need to improve my game incredibly.

I remember when I first started playing I had no regard for outs, or odds I just played just like every other newbie, (check-call with a draw - bet, raise with a made hand). I started learning outs and odds and they really helped my game. I managed to get away from unprofitable "chasing" situations thanks to HEFAP and WLLHE.

The problem I am facing now is that, to be a "better than average" poker player you need to do more math than just calculating pot odds and correlating them with your winning chances. After reading SSHE, my mind was really in a loop.

I mean, here I thought that just knowing outs vs. odds was enough to be successful, but after reading SSHE I realized that I need to start considering things like,

1. Pot Equity
2. Plays that yield a +EV over time.

in order to enhance my playing. Calculating Pot equity seems pretty straightforward for a good flush or straight draw. Now my real question is figuring out your EV. Of course, I understand the concept of making +EV plays, however, I am having a real hard time in understanding how you calculate EV for a certain play? Furthermore, how long did it take you guys to really get sharp with the math involved?

[twankerr]

Pot equity is what I would consider a theoretical nuance to the game of poker. The best players in the world are perhaps the best because of their ability to understand equity. Gus Hansen has become a pseudo-revolutionary in some circles because of the way he approaches poker as a game of equity. When you consider pot equity, you must consider many factors. I offer that making an error at the beginning is more costly than making an error at the end.

In the footnotes, Ed Miller points out the possible holdings of your opponents. I offer that it is more important (at a small stakes level) to keep the players that are drawing dead in the pot, than it is to lower the drawing opponents EV. 5 people (including you) have entered the pot for two bets each. You hold A/images/graemlins/heart.gif A/images/graemlins/club.gif and the flop comes 9/images/graemlins/club.gif 7/images/graemlins/club.gif 3/images/graemlins/spade.gif (I'm not following the betting pattern from the book, however). It is obvious you have the best hand here the majority of the time. You are in MP with two players ahead of you and two players behind you. The first player open bets and the second player raises. In order to determine your pot equity, you now must digest the information:

1. Is your hand good?
2. What kind of hand does the first opponent need to open?
3. What kind of hand does the second opponent need to raise?
4. What will the other two limp-callers call with?

The step that I consider the most important is step four(does this change if the plays are on the turn?). It would be a huge mistake to raise if your opponent were to call two bets with K/images/graemlins/club.gif J/images/graemlins/spade.gif, but he would not call three bets. A hand like his would certaintly not lower your equity in any way, so in this situation the two limpers behind you have such low equity in the pot, that it cannot be harmful to let them remain in, correct?

Discuss.

[Francis]

Wow,

all these young turks in their 20's playing the game. I'm envious of you guys who started poker so early.

I just started playing poker in Sept at the age of 43, and have a few thousand hands at Pokerstars and Party. Prior to this, I had never played poker, but did play a lot of BJ.

Anyway, I've read WLLH, and SSH, and am looking to really digging into the material in SSH. So far the discussion looks good.

There's a big difference between reading a book, and being able to apply the info into correct action at the tables. I'm hoping this review will move me from being a break even newbie to starting to show a positive result.. WLLH was a great start, and on a good day, I show a modest profit, but my post flop play is still very weak...

I'm sure putting in the effort here to study with the group will help with that.

Regards,
Francis

[Bobby Digital]

My intro and background is basically the same as many others so I won't bother.

Once concept I never really understood fully was when your opponents have the odds to call and you are still betting. I understand why you should bet but I am not sure what is actually happening, more specifically who is gaining and who is losing?

An example would be you have TPTK and are heads up after the turn against a four flush in an 8 bb pot. You bet and obviously your opponent can call profitably. So are you losing money in this situation? Is this a case of betting to minimize your losses. I realize increasing positive EV and decreasing negative EV are basically the same. So is this a situation where you are decreasing negative EV by betting? If that is the case then this bet has a positive EV if you just examine that bet alone?

How does this change in multi-way pots? (I think there is something about this in Theory of Poker, but it's been a while since I have read it.) This is where I get more confused, and coming up with an example for what I am trying to ask is complicated.

[twankerr]

I'm not sure if this is the situation you are referring to, or not. Anyone is welcome to intersect when I butcher this.

Hero has A /images/graemlins/diamond.gifQ /images/graemlins/heart.gif
Villan has Two spades, none higher than a queen and none making a four straight on the turn

Board reads 3 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 4 /images/graemlins/spade.gif Q /images/graemlins/club.gif 7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif

Since it it heads up, you can easily calculate your pot equity. At this point, you are about 80% to win, and he is 20% to win. Therefore, since it obvious that the flush draw can call correctly, you will want to bet still. Every dollar that goes into the pot, $0.80 goes to you and $0.20 goes to the flush draw. As you can see, you are both winning money by playing the hand, but you are winning more money.

Another approach to take (however, this topic my be later in the book). Right now if you bet into the 8BB pot, he will have 5:1 on a call that he can make. If you dont bet, he will have infinite odds. Therefore, he is gaining money on you in that situation.

One more thing to consider is that if he misses his flush but happens to hit something like a jack while holding J /images/graemlins/spade.gif, he may still pay you off for one extra bet.

Perhaps betting into a player who has odds to call is a road block for some because they think that anything that helps their opponent, must hurt themself.

[Bobby Digital]

Much clearer now. A better way to say it might be that your opponent can call profitably but he is not profiting on the bet you just made. You are gaining on that bet and he is losing on that paticular bet, correct?

[WEASEL45]

since there is already money in the pot both of you are making money. you are just making more

[Carlos]

[ QUOTE ]
Much clearer now. A better way to say it might be that your opponent can call profitably but he is not profiting on the bet you just made. You are gaining on that bet and he is losing on that paticular bet, correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. The following might help to tie everything together.

Say there's 5BB in pot before the turn bet.

The flush draw's pot equity is (0.2)(5) BB = 1 BB.
The pair of queens pot equity is (0.8)(5) BB = 4 BB

Seen in isolation the turn bet costs the flush draw 1 BB - (0.2)(2) BB = 0.6 BB.

Seen in isolation the turn bet gains the flush draw (0.8)(2) BB - 1 BB = 0.6 BB when the flush draw calls and 5 BB - 4 BB = 1 BB when the flush draw folds.

Assuming the river goes check-check the EV of the turn call 1 BB - 0.6 BB = 0.4 BB (the difference between the pot equity that he is keeping and the turn loss).

Assuming the river goes check-check the EV of the turn bet is (probability that flush draw folds)(1) + (probability than flush draw calls)(0.6)

[Derek in NYC]

Isn't all of the discussion about pot equity is really just a preamble to calculating whether you have a pot equity edge. As we've discussed, estimates of pot equity can be tricky.

But assuming you arrive at some percentage of pot equity, the next step is to compare your pot equity with the percentage of the bets on that round you must contribute. For example, in a 3-handed game, where you call and close the action, your contribution is 33%. Your pot equity edge is just the difference between your contribution percent, and your pot equity. If you have a 50% pot equity, but a 33% contribution, your edge is 17%.

You should raise when you have an edge, unless waiting until the next betting round will give you a larger edge.

[Lost Wages]

First off, K /images/graemlins/club.gifJ /images/graemlins/spade.gif does have a little pot equity because he can make a running straight, trips or two pair to beat you. Of course, it's only a couple of percent and he doesn't have odds to chase so you are rooting for him to call.

Second, while just calling may get two more bets in the pot from him, you could have gotten the same two bets in when the first two players call your reraise.

More importantly, your example is contrived. In the real world you don't know what your opponents hold. Suppose that instead of K /images/graemlins/club.gifJ /images/graemlins/spade.gif he holds 7 /images/graemlins/spade.gif6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif or J /images/graemlins/spade.gifT /images/graemlins/spade.gif? How do you feel about keeping him in now?

I offer that it is more important (at a small stakes level) to keep the players that are drawing dead in the pot, than it is to lower the drawing opponents EV.

I disagree. I think that this is an incorrect and dangerous idea. Rarely is your opponent drawing completely dead on the flop. In your example, an overpair, your hand is very vulnerable in a multiway pot. The only question is whether to reraise the flop or wait until the turn.

Lost Wages

[DonkeyKong]

I offer that it is more important (at a small stakes level) to keep the players that are drawing dead in the pot, than it is to lower the drawing opponents EV.

In my view, a big point in SSH is that you should let the size of the pot guide your decisions. If the pot is big, be more inclined to raise to maximize your chance of winning it (and potentially buying more outs). Of course, if you have a monster and there are still 5 to act, you may want to only call to draw these players in but most of the time, you should raise to charge others to draw at you.

[twankerr]

[ QUOTE ]
The only question is whether to reraise the flop or wait until the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Naturally the course of action after just calling that flop would be to raise the turn. Perhaps I'm a little lost on the whole raise or call idea, but that is another part of the book.

[LALDAAS]

In this section Ed also gives us a handy dandy chart for the outs to break even odds on 4th street I was wondering if anyone had a chart for outs to break even odds on the flop drawing to 4th street as well as drawing odds on 4th. Ed mentions refering to TOP for this information. Unfortunitly I have yet to pick this book up.

[BluffBlank]

[ QUOTE ]


The math nerds can also explain why it doesn't work by using the cards that help instead of the cards that don't (i.e. 9/47*9/46), but just know that it doesn't, so don't do it that way. /images/graemlins/wink.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

Because you need to add the probibilies of hitting the card on the turn, and hitting it on the river, not multiply them, since only one has to occur. So it'd be 9/47 + 9/46 which is ~38%.

-Bluff

[RobGW]

The formula is 9/47 + 38/47 * 9/46. In words, there are 9 outs that help you on the turn(9/47) plus if you don't make it on the turn you may still make it on the river(38/47*9/46). Once you do the math it comes out to 35%.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As for my introduction, I am a 23 year old college student from Milwaukee.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh my wonderful hometown. I'm currently in La Crosse for college though. I have to say I've been surprised by the amount of 2+2ers in the WI and MN area. I think sometime in the future a massive meet up should be in order, or possibly a 2+2 WI vs MN battle. Either way glad to have another WI guy on the boards.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm actually from WI too, although I live in CO now. I'll duck out of the main discussion this time around because while I have read SSHE cover to cover, it's been a while since I read part 1 and I didn't have time to read it in time for today and have anything very good to say. I plan on participating in the later rounds, though.

Here's my bio: I'm a 24-year old aerospace engineer from Colorado (by way of San Diego and originally northwestern WI). I first started playing poker for quarters on hockey trips when I was about 10 years old. While it's impossible to really know, I remember usually winning there, but only through being smarter than the average hockey player and not through any sort of real poker talent. My parents like blackjack and I've always been good at math, so as soon as I was old enough to play in the casinos, I took up blackjack and then learned how to count cards. While I had played poker since I was 10, I vowed never to play in a casino because it's a game where I was sure the old-timers would eat me alive and I'd have no prayer. That was all well and good and I was winning playing BJ, but it got a bit boring. I decided I'd learn to be the one who's the shark at the casino poker game and started with WLLHE, HEP, and TOP. I found my way into Ocean's 11 in Oceanside, CA, won $120 my first night at the 1/2 tables, and have been positive and completely hooked since. When I go to San Diego for work now, I play the 4/8 at Ocean's 11 as much as possible. I've only worked my way up to 1/2 online so far though (started at .5/1) - I haven't been able to spend as much time there as I'd like.

[Lost Wages]

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> Odds:1
F to T T to R F to R
Outs (1 or 2)
1 46.0 45.0 22.5
2 22.5 22.0 10.8
3 14.7 14.3 7.0
4 10.8 10.5 5.1
5 8.4 8.2 3.9
6 6.8 6.7 3.1
7 5.7 5.6 2.6
8 4.9 4.8 2.2
9 4.2 4.1 1.9
10 3.7 3.6 1.6
11 3.3 3.2 1.4
12 2.9 2.8 1.2
13 2.6 2.5 1.1
14 2.4 2.3 1.0
15 2.1 2.1 0.9
</pre><hr />

F to T = flop to turn etc.
F to R odds are for hitting at least one out by the river.

Lost Wages

[Nagoo81]

Doesn't everyone know the <font color="red">RULE OF FOUR</font>?

On the flop, you count your outs. Let's say, a flush draw is nine outs, right?. Multiply that by four = 9 x 4 = 36. ROUGHLY 36% of the time your bowl will flush. Actually, its 35%, as many of you pointed out already, but that's a quick way to calculate it.

On the turn, its the <font color="red">RULE OF TWO</font>. Same thing, but only multiply your outs by two. Again, Flush draw: 9 outs x 2 ~ 18%

[LALDAAS]

Thx lost, Actually I do recall the 4 and 2 rule but also thx for the refresh NAgoo81

[As Zehn]

Great post, a real time saver. Makes me feel kind of dumb though. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[Malcom Reynolds]

The math nerds can also explain why it doesn't work by using the cards that help instead of the cards that don't (i.e. 9/47*9/46), but just know that it doesn't, so don't do it that way.

If you want to calculate it directly by cards that help, it's more complicated because there are more cases. It goes something like this:

A * B * C

where
A - prob of getting flush card on turn and not the river
B - prob of getting flush card on river and not the turn
C - prob of getting flush card on the turn and the river

A = 9/47 * 38/46
B = 38/47 * 9/46
C = 9/47 * 8/46

This summation equals 34.97%.

What's interesting is if you have baby flush cards (say 45s) you will often lose when your flush card comes on both the turn and the river. C = 3.33%, so if you have small flush cards, your true equity is probably closer to 31.6%

[Malcom Reynolds]

Even if he makes the proper call each time, he is in a worse situation EV wise than he was before.

So while you are forcing your opponent to make the worse EV decision, don't forget the added benefit that he gives up whatever equity he had in the pot, increasing your equity and increasing your expected share of the pot.

[Malcom Reynolds]

An Example: Assume you see a flop with 3 other opponents that contains 10 bets. Also assume that you will win this pot 35% of the time whereas your other opponents will win 25%, 25%, and 15% respectively. Because you have the highest pot equity the correct play in this case is to raise.

Not entirely. When you have the highest equity, then yes, it is correct to raise for value. But really, you raise for value if you have an equity edge, that is, you have higher equity than the break even point.

Let me give you an example.

Suppose that there are four players, A, B, C and D with their preflop equities as follows:

A = 35%
B = 21%
C = 17%
D = 27%

Now 25% equity is the break even point. If you have 25% equity in a four handed pot, if everyone puts in the same amount of money, this is EV neutral to you. If you keep raising, and all three other players keep calling you, your expectation on the play is still zero, and you merely increase your variance.

Now preflop, if D in on the big blind, and A, B, C all call, D can raise for value, since we expect everyone who put in a bet to call, preflop. Notice that D doesn't have the highest equity, and still can profitably raise.

If everyone puts in a dollar, D expects to make $1.08 of that pot in the long run, so raising makes D eight cents. Notice that on that raise, player A with the highest preflop equity expects to make $1.40 for a fourty cent profit.

[Malcom Reynolds]

Your 'pot equity' is higher if you have AT then if you have QT because your opponent could very well have KT or QT. AT still loses to something like a set of sevens but if you were in this hand repeatedly, AT would win money against the range of hands your opponent could have.

You bring up an interesting point. There is true equity, that is, the equity of your hand vs. the others if you put it into twodimes.net and calculate the exact probability that you will win.

But you can't know what everyone's cards are, so you calculate your equity based on the range of hands you put your opponents on. Sometimes you give yourself full overcard outs, sometimes you can consider them completely worthless.

The entire point of counting outs, partial outs, hidden outs, is you want to make an estimate on your current equity. Based on how tight a range of hands you can confidently put your opponent on, you can get closer and closer to a good estimate of your equity.

And when you add in things like bluffs and semi-bluffs, you can add folding equity to your estimated drawing equity, giving you a figure that could potentially be wildly different from your 'true equity'.

[cbfair]

Great thread. I've gained alot from this discussion already.

I'm 30 and married for about 2 years. I live outside Nashville, TN and have recently started playing poker. Some friends showed me how limit hold'em is played this last fourth of July and since then I've focused intently on learning the game. I fumbled around in the beginning looking for the best resources and luckily read TOP before getting sucked into too much other junk. TOP was way over my head at the time but it did introduce me to 2+2. I've since read SSH and spent countless hours reading these forums and playing hands. I have about 16,500 hands in my PT database at .25/50, .5/1 and 1/2 for a total loss of around .41bb/100. I've recently re-committed to playing exclusively .5/1 until I'm a proven 2bb/100 winner for at least 10K hands.

Many of you have a far better grasp on pot equity than I currently do so I don't suggest I'll add any additional information, but I may bring it back to basics for those of us closer to square one. In Part One, Ed lists three situations to consider pot equity assuming the pot is multi-way:

1. "When you're considering folding, your pot equity measures how much you "lose"..." I read this as a tool to provide some estimate of whether the pot is big enough to justify calling one bet with your drawing or weak made hand or small enough to justify folding for one bet. I think Ed breaks down this concept nicely (without ever mentioning the words "pot equity" here (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=micro&amp;Number=462860&amp;fpart= &amp;PHPSESSID=). It may not apply as cleanly as I assume but thats how I read the passage in the book.

2. "When you are considering giving a free card (e.g. slowplaying) your opponent's combined pot equity measures how much you are risking..." We see this all the time when we flop trips on a semi-coordinated board and we don't want to "lose customers". Consider K/images/graemlins/spade.gif 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif on the button with four opponents in an unraised pot. Flop comes K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif K /images/graemlins/heart.gif A /images/graemlins/heart.gif, it's checked to Hero. In this situation we want to estimate the range of hands that could be strong draws against us and the likelihood that our opponents hold them. This combined estimate of their holdings is their pot equity... you give them this equity by granting the free card but in some cases you may more than make up for it on future betting rounds. Obviously, we could gain a huge amount if the 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif comes on the turn, how else can we gain it back?

3. "When you have a strong drawing hand (particularly before the flop or on the flop) your pot equity determines whether you can bet or raise for value". I feel like I have an intuitive grasp on this scenario moreso than the other two, so I don't know exactly what to add. This is also the topic that seems most thoroughly addressed here by people who've given it far more insightful thought. 'nuff said.

[Mackas]

The "rule of 4" as you describe it gets progressively more inaccurate as your outs increase, its fine for 1-8 outs, from 9-12 apply outs times four minus one, and for 13-16 outs apply outs times four minus four. More than that and your odds on to make the hand by the river anyway. Slightly more complicated than simply times four as a rule of thumb but not that hard to remember when you think about it and a lot more accurate.

I also think the "rule of two" as Nagoo calls it for percentage to make the hand on the river should in fact be outs times two plus two. Catchy that twoplustwo bit eh?

Anyway not really correcting Nagoo, just clarifying, particularly with respect to the (times)2+2 bit which is where I always thought the name of this forum / publishers came from. Or am I misguided in this respect?

[New York Jet]

Here is an Outs and Percentages Calculator/Quizzer I wrote. You will need to install the .NET Framework for it to work, which is available through Windows Update.

You can download it HERE (http://nyjet_twoplustwo.home.mindspring.com/Odds.zip)

The Calculator
http://nyjet_twoplustwo.home.mindspring.com/OddCalc.JPG

It defaults to calculating Hold'em odds, but has an option to set it to calculate Omaha odds as well. What makes it unique is that it allows you to calculate partial outs. For instance, if you have a Gutshot Straight Draw (4 outs) and a Backdoor Flush Draw (1.5 outs), you can calculate the percentages and odds for 5.5 outs.

The Quizzer
http://nyjet_twoplustwo.home.mindspring.com/OddsQuizzer.JPG

Randomly gives you outs and asks you to provide the percentages and odds. The percentages are rounded to the nearest percent (35.57%=36%) and the odds are rounded to the nearest one-tenth (1.37=1.4).

I’ve written a Starting Hand Quizzer based on SSH and HPFAP, but would need Ed or David to approve my posting of it due to copyrighted material.
http://nyjet_twoplustwo.home.mindspring.com/HandQuizzer.JPG

Please, DO NOT PM ME to see if I will send you a copy, because I won’t unless you are Ed, David, or Mason.


<font color="green">New York Jet</font>

[Francis]

NYJ,

thx for making your odds calc available.

I'd kill for the quizzer. I'd love a tool like this to train myself to compute the right odds faster...

Do you need a beta tester? :-)

thanks again,
Francis

[New York Jet]

The Odds Quizzer is part of the Odds Calculator. Just select File, then Quizzer.


<font color="green">New York Jet</font>

[Lauren]

This win percentage being talked about in reference to pot equity, is this only in regard to the chances of the hand you have winning? I'm confused why you make examples that include your opponents win percentage when you won't ever know it. Are you supposed to estimate this as well during play?

Also, is this the same idea as the percentages they show on like WSOP? Or is that just card outs?

This book club is awesome!

[AKQJ10]

I'll give tentative answers to Lauren's two questions, pending someone more experienced telling me i'm out to lunch of it...

[ QUOTE ]
This win percentage being talked about in reference to pot equity, is this only in regard to the chances of the hand you have winning? I'm confused why you make examples that include your opponents win percentage when you won't ever know it. Are you supposed to estimate this as well during play?

[/ QUOTE ]

I see no reason why you'd want to estimate pot equity for the whole table. As far as i can tell Toonces and MEbenhoe are having a highly theoretical discussion about who benefits by how much when certain players make certain mistakes. To have this discussion they seem to have adopted a "God's eye view" where we, looking back on the hand, know each player's probability of winning. Guys, correct me if i'm wrong.

Also, Lauren's question is a good reminder that we should probably clearly mark the "theoretical discussion" posts so that they don't trip up us beginners who are looking for practical advice. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Also, is this the same idea as the percentages they show on like WSOP? Or is that just card outs?


[/ QUOTE ]

The only difference i can think of is that theoretically pot equity would account for the chance that one player might cause another to fold a better hand. In other words, if i think i can bluff my opponent into folding a better hand 10% of the time, then my pot equity might be as much as 10% greater.

In other words, the TV percentages are probability of winning in a showdown, while pot equity is based on probability of winning a pot. But not all pots are won in a showdown.

Anything i'm missing?

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
I see no reason why you'd want to estimate pot equity for the whole table. As far as i can tell Toonces and MEbenhoe are having a highly theoretical discussion about who benefits by how much when certain players make certain mistakes. To have this discussion they seem to have adopted a "God's eye view" where we, looking back on the hand, know each player's probability of winning. Guys, correct me if i'm wrong.

Also, Lauren's question is a good reminder that we should probably clearly mark the "theoretical discussion" posts so that they don't trip up us beginners who are looking for practical advice.


[/ QUOTE ]

You're correct this was purely a theoretical discussion. However, that doesn't mean that you can't at times figure out an approximation of what your opponents pot equity is. This requires you to fairly accurately be able to put your opponent on a hand, and in most cases wouldn't be worth the effort, but its not impossible.

Also, don't discount the theoretical discussions. These discussions are how you learn the concepts that help you make the "practical" decisions.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, is this the same idea as the percentages they show on like WSOP? Or is that just card outs?


[/ QUOTE ]

The only difference i can think of is that theoretically pot equity would account for the chance that one player might cause another to fold a better hand. In other words, if i think i can bluff my opponent into folding a better hand 10% of the time, then my pot equity might be as much as 10% greater.

In other words, the TV percentages are probability of winning in a showdown, while pot equity is based on probability of winning a pot. But not all pots are won in a showdown.

Anything i'm missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're missing the point here. Bluffing an opponent out of a hand isn't included in pot equity. Basically for pot equity its just your percent chance of winning the hand, and it is usually used with regards to how much you are gaining or losing on any bet or raise.

[Lauren]

thanks!

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you're missing the point here. Bluffing an opponent out of a hand isn't included in pot equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now i'm guilty of pushing a theoretical point of dubious practical value. But here goes....

Sure it is. Let's make up an extreme case: your opponent folds on the flop to a bet with any non-nut hand. In that case, it would certainly affect your pot equity, because you would know that you have a far better chance of winning any pot than your cards would dictate.

OK, granted, that's reduction to absurdity. In practical terms winning pots without the best cards isn't really useful to factor in unless you know you can do so far more often than your opponent. If you say, "I expect to make this draw a third of the time so my pot equity is around 33%" you're talking about the cards coming in for you, not bluffing people out of pots. But if you know that you're going to win say 10% more pots than your cards would dictate because of your superior postflop play, then it seems obvious that would increase your pot equity, no?

[ QUOTE ]
Basically for pot equity its just your percent chance of winning the hand...

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course. But you don't have to have the best cards to win the hand!

[ QUOTE ]
...and it is usually used with regards to how much you are gaining or losing on any bet or raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, that's the most important practical use of the concept. I've also seen someone on the Other Poker forum (Buzz perhaps?) refer to "fresh money odds" to calculate basically the same thing.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think you're missing the point here. Bluffing an opponent out of a hand isn't included in pot equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now i'm guilty of pushing a theoretical point of dubious practical value. But here goes....

Sure it is. Let's make up an extreme case: your opponent folds on the flop to a bet with any non-nut hand. In that case, it would certainly affect your pot equity, because you would know that you have a far better chance of winning any pot than your cards would dictate.

OK, granted, that's reduction to absurdity. In practical terms winning pots without the best cards isn't really useful to factor in unless you know you can do so far more often than your opponent. If you say, "I expect to make this draw a third of the time so my pot equity is around 33%" you're talking about the cards coming in for you, not bluffing people out of pots. But if you know that you're going to win say 10% more pots than your cards would dictate because of your superior postflop play, then it seems obvious that would increase your pot equity, no?


[/ QUOTE ]

To answer your question:

[ QUOTE ]
Your "pot equity" is the dollar or bet amount equivalent to the percentage of the pot that you expect to win. That is, if the pot contains ten bets, and you have a draw to the nuts that will come in twenty percent of the time, your pot equity is two bets (twenty percent of ten).

[/ QUOTE ]

Including percentage chance of bluffing your opponent off of a hand is not effective and doesn't fit into the idea behind the concept. Also in the loose small stakes games this book is representing, how often do you honestly think you're going to bluff your opponent off of a hand?

[profpeebody]

[ QUOTE ]
The math nerds can also explain why it doesn't work by using the cards that help instead of the cards that don't (i.e. 9/47*9/46), but just know that it doesn't, so don't do it that way.

If you want to calculate it directly by cards that help, it's more complicated because there are more cases. It goes something like this:

A * B * C

where
A - prob of getting flush card on turn and not the river
B - prob of getting flush card on river and not the turn
C - prob of getting flush card on the turn and the river

A = 9/47 * 38/46
B = 38/47 * 9/46
C = 9/47 * 8/46

This summation equals 34.97%.

What's interesting is if you have baby flush cards (say 45s) you will often lose when your flush card comes on both the turn and the river. C = 3.33%, so if you have small flush cards, your true equity is probably closer to 31.6%

[/ QUOTE ]

All your calculations seem correct but I think you made a slight mistake in your probability formula ([probability of making any flush] = A*B*C). The formula should be a summation:
[probability of making any flush] = A+B+C

[argem]

Hello everyone!

I'm a bit late here, sorry, had some exams to do =\. I would like to revive this thread for a little while.

I have a hard time understanding the concept of reverse implied odds. Ed writes that reverse implied odds is when you might have the best hand at the moment, but your hand is very vulnerable and probably won't hold up to the river, so you'll end up paying your opponends instead of vice versa.

I interpret the whole reverse implied odds situation as: against the whole field, you're an underdog. That is, given that you currently has the best hand, all you opponents combined odds to win by the river is bigger than 50%.

So, to follow the example in the book, page 34, say the scenario consists of the following hands:

Hero (in BB): 92o
MP1: ATo
MP2: KQo
SB: JTo

Flop: 9/images/graemlins/club.gif 8/images/graemlins/club.gif 3/images/graemlins/heart.gif

Chances of improving to a better hand by the river:

MP1: Three aces and two tens are live outs
5/47 + (42/47)*(5/46) ~ 0.20

MP2: Three kings are live outs
3/47 + (44/47)*(3/46) ~ 0.125

SB: Three queens, three jacks and four sevens are live outs.
10/47 + 36/47*10/46 ~ 0.38

So collectively, they have a 70% chance of improving to a better hand than heros by the river.

Note, I know this is an oversimplified analysis. I haven't taken into account the knowledge of knowing 11 cards instead of 5 when counting odds. This isn't a very like scenario, with this lineup, at least one probably would have raised pre-flop, also, I've neglected the possibilty that someone allready has a better hand, flush draws, redraws, etc etc.

Is it these kind of scenarios which constitutes reverse implied odds situations, or am I completely off here?

Now say that it is only Hero and SB in the hand. Then Hero got a 62% chance of holding up. This is not a reverse implied odds situation, right?

[Toonces]

[ QUOTE ]
Now say that it is only Hero and SB in the hand. Then Hero got a 62% chance of holding up. This is not a reverse implied odds situation, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are a little off in your understanding of reverse implied odds. In my opinion, the best way to think about RIO is thinking of it as the converse of implied odds. The concept of implied odds (in it's purest sense), is that you know that you are only risking a single bet (you will fold if you miss your draw), but if you hit your draw, you are very likely to win (as well as get additional bets from your opponents. As a result, your odds improve because you are NOT all-in.

A reverse implied odds situation is any one in which you wish that you were all-in. in the 92 v. JT example you mentioned, the 92 is more than a 50% favorite to win. But he has very little idea which cards are dangerous cards for him, and if the hand goes to the turn and river, the turn and river will likely be -EV for him. Now, it is probably the case that heads-up, his current pot equity is too strong for him to check-fold, but he desperately wishes he was all-in at this point (or could go all-in on the flop), so reverse implied odds applies here.

Now, one thing I haven't seen yet is how to use Reverse implied odds in a calculation, rather than just use the concept to fold a close situation.

[darvon]

Let me try my hand at an explaination.

Pot odds say what is the amount of the pot divided by my bet. I CALL when Pot Odds are equal or better than my odds to hit my outs, such that if:

a) If I hit my out card, I will always win.
b) The incremental amount I risk until I know if I have the winning hand is one bet.
c) The amount I will win is the current amount of the pot.


So if I have 4 outs (gut-shot draw) of the 46 available cards on the river, my odds of hitting it are 4/46 or 10.5:1. Therefore to risk a call then the "pot odds" need to be better than my odds to hit my out. If the pot is 16 CALL, if it is 8 FOLD.

Implied odds mean:

a) SAME. If I hit my out card, I will always win.
b) SAME. The incremental amount I risk until I know if I have the winning hand is one bet.
c) DIFFERENT. The amount I will win is different than the current amount of the pot.

The example being if I have a straight draw on the turn. A) is still assumed to be true, as the board and betting patterns lead me to believe a straight will win. B) is still true, as if I miss my straight on the river I will NOT bet again. But C) is now wrong, as if I HIT the river, my opponents may bet more increasing the pot and therefore the implied odds in this case are a smidge more than the pot odds by the amount i guesstimate will be added to the pot by my opponents at the river. I haven't a clue how to calculate implied odds, other than making a guess about the river betting pattern and chucking those extra dollars into the pot odds. My additional bets don't matter/count, since I KNOW I am a winner, I am just temporarily placing them in the pot. They are NOT being bet, just moved around a bit.

i.e. Implied odds are the pot odds of my "guesstimate" of the larger pot if I hit my straight.


Reverse Implied odds are when B) is no longer true. Eg. A Backdoor flush draw.
My odds are 23:1 to do it. If the Pot odds were 23:1 I SHOULDN’T do it, because if a get my card on the turn, I STILL may have to CALL again to see the river, where I will know if I got my flush or not. So my decision on the flop will be the 1 bet of my call and some percentage of likely hood of another bet spent calling the turn. If I guesstimate that I have a 50% chance of having to call one bet on the turn(vs checking) TIMES my odds of getting an out on the turn (if i don't I fold), then my decision on the flop is for a little more than 1 bet and my REVERSE IMPLIED odds are =
(current pot+50%*#of bets(people) on the turn)/(1+50%*10/47) bets

If we are heads up, then I would need a current pot of about 26 bets to justify a call on the flop.


================CRITICISM WITH CAVEAT================

IF (and that's a big IF) I am understanding this right, then the example of Reverse Implied Odds on page 34 is a bad one.

The pot odds are 5:1 but the example DOESN'T talk about hitting your outs. How many outs does this hand have?
A 9 is an almost full out, and a 2 is what? 1/2 an out? 1/4? I haven't a clue. I might guess 1/2 an out and the 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif doesn't count. So that's about 3? Well with pot odds of 5:1 and 3 outs, I wouldn't call just considering POT ODDS, so how does this make a good example for Reverse Implied Odds?

================================================

[darvon]

I don't know if this is the right spot to post this, I am still getting used to the "threading" of this forum.

What is the reason to introduce the concept of Implied Odds and Reverse Implied Odds in SSH if it doesn't go into how to calculate them or use them?

[AKQJ10]

See my comments above somewhere about pot equity, and how it's estimated more than calculated. Seems to me the same is true of implied odds and reverse implied odds. In other words, it's more important to understand that your hand will be paid off handsomely (or not) than to try to calculate the precise payoff.

(Or more to the point, you should estimate the payoff and then act accordingly -- then the quality of your estimates will directly impact the quality of your decisions. Then you see if your read was accurate, and reincorporate that info into the feedback loop, etc.)

[darvon]

I understand that in an "Implied Odds" situation, the "Virtual Pot" grows a little and in an "Reverse Pot Odds" situation the "Virtual Bet" grows a little.

But why introduce a TERM and verbally try to describe it, if we can't calculate it or use it.

Or let me say it a different way, How do I tell when it is time to make a different decision than one indicated by Pot Odds, if I can't calc the "Other" odds? I don't mind estimating instead of calculating, but we haven't been taught how to estimate it either.


It doesn't seem as if SSH has given us instructions on how to modify our behavior using "Implied" or "Reverse Implied".

Am I missing something?

[darvon]

OK.

Let me ask the question. Pot Odds are introduced, so that we can understand that if the Pot Odds are paying off higher than the odds to make our out, then we should CALL a bet.

Reverse Odds and Implied Odds are introduced to show us that there are situations where the decision made using Pot Odds is not optimal.

OK. So show me a hand example where my Pot Odds decision is different than my Implied Odds (or Reverse...)decision.

[darvon]

Another question. Although this may be better addres in post-flop play, I am bringing it up here because of Pot Odds.


You have A /images/graemlins/heart.gif 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif

flop is A /images/graemlins/club.gif T /images/graemlins/spade.gif 9 /images/graemlins/club.gif

You are MP1.
8 people saw the flop. MP2 bets. 6 others call. 14Bets
What do you do?

[Luv2DriveTT]

Darvon:

Although I understand the concept of implied odds and reverse implied odds, I am not qualified to explain them. I would however reccomend reading David Sklansky's premier work the Theory of Poker. Gambling Concepts was essentially a chapter in SHHE covering these previously explained concepts from TOP.

I hope this helps!

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[AKQJ10]

I think you're making a fair critique, in that Ed mentions this concept but doesn't entirely flesh it out.

What i gleaned from the discussion in SSH is, "Whenever you hit top pair with a medium card, or some other precarious hand, try to ask yourself how much you expect to make if your hand holds up." And if my answer is, not much, then shade my decisions accordingly.

Whether i'm actually applying this lesson when i make top pair with a ten, or whether i could give another example not involving a flaky top pair (maybe a second-nut flush in Omaha 8?), is very much open to debate.

So yes, I agree that it would be helpful to have more written on the topic.

[Francis]

FI have no idea if this is the correct answer to this question, so take it with a giant brick of salt; [ QUOTE ]
Another question. Although this may be better addres in post-flop play, I am bringing it up here because of Pot Odds.


You have A 4

flop is A T 9

You are MP1.
8 people saw the flop. MP2 bets. 6 others call. 14Bets
What do you do?

[/ QUOTE ]

If it were me, given the large pot, I'd call to at least see the turn. Yes, you're up against a flush draw, and the chances of having the winning hand are slim; but you could spike a 4 or another A.

Not sure if this is the 'correct' play; which is probably why I'm still struggling to be long term profitable in my budding poker career... /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[Etric]

I think that this is an easy call. I close the action and it is worth it to invest a bet getting 14:1 to see the turn card. Even if you only have 2 full outs (the A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif and 4 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif , you still have high implied odds with all of these calling stations in the pot. The A /images/graemlins/spade.gif and 4 /images/graemlins/spade.gif allow a redraw against you so I wouldn't count them as full outs. I doubt anyone has AK or AQ as there was no preflop raise, so if you are against another A then there is a good chance that you'd chop (barring AJ).

By the way, I'm 24 and started learning poker so that I could play with my girlfriend and I'd figured that I might as well go with her to the poker rooms instead of just being alone while she was gambling. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[darvon]

This hand is on the bottom of page 118. It is listed as a POOR hand. It doesn't explicitly say to fold, but that's what I read into it.

&gt;you still have high implied odds with all of these calling stations in the pot.

I don't understand here. Why are there implied odds? If you hit your A on the turn and then the river comes a club you lose. The betting on the turn ISNT a free roll. What are the implied odds? The pot odds are 14:1.

[froggy527]

Sigh /images/graemlins/frown.gif I wish hadn't slept that year in math!
and all of those other years to!

[Etric]

P. 115 POOR: "...You might bet if your opponents appear weak, but you should generally fold to aggression unless the pot is very large."

Those hands in that section exist in a vaccuum. Here are the reasons I would call in your example.

-You have good relative position (p105). Your call closes the action. You will see the turn for 1 bet.

-Your opponents are obviously loose (as Ed says "tight players do not make nine handed pots"... well, they don't make enough handed pots either) and passive (no one raised preflop or on the flop. They are probably on draws or have bottom pair. Pocket pairs or sets are unlikely given the action, as is a higher ace with the exception of possibly AJ)

-The pot is large (it was six handed preflop (p145) and therefore you should continue with marginal hands that you might fold in a small pot (p147). This is probably the most important reason to continue, IMO.

-The turn card drastically effects your pot equity. If a blank comes (like the 2 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif). Your hand could be best and many cards could beat you. Read "Final Thoughts on p189"


Anyway, these are the reasons I would call in your example. I'd love to know if I am misapplying the principles in SSH as I've only been playing for a couple of months, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

[Jay36489]

I'm with AKQJT about labeling the theoretical posts theoretical. I am reading this book for the first time and thought I understood this chapter well, but all the theory in this thread has given me a headache /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Background. I'm 30. I've played in a little home game for years, never knowing what I was doing, never been a "gambler". I got into HE and blew $100 on pp SNGs. I just started playing seriously a month and a half ago when I read WLLH. I found a free $15 in my party after much time away from there and I've worked it up to about $1000 including $300 in bonuses. I'm enjoying SSH so far.

One question. Would you guys reccomend stopping playing while I read, or keep playing while I read?

[PapiChulo503]

THNX!!! I never even knew there was a rule of 4.

[Toonces]

[ QUOTE ]
One question. Would you guys reccomend stopping playing while I read, or keep playing while I read?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think it's a good idea to keep playing while I read. I don't want my opponents to see which chapter I flipped to.

[Francis]

I'm in agreement w/most of Etics reasons for calling in this situation...

It seems SSH keeps pounding on not folding in big pots, especially for 1 more bet.

Can anyone (such as Ed) give the definitive answer on this? If I'm going to burn this into my synapses, I want to make sure it's right.. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

thanks in advance,
Francis