Beginner question on pots odds & number of players

[Adrian]

Hi,
When calculating pot odds to decide whether to bet, fold or raise, should we, after the flop, be working out the odds on just the turn when betting after the flop or using both the turn and river possibilities? For exmaple, I have a 2clubs and 2 clubs fall on the flop. Should I bet basis 4/1 being the turn, or 2/1 being the turn and flop?

My second question relates to pot odds again. They say if you have pot odds for exmaple of 5/1 with 4 players in the pot, and the number of outs give you say odds of 4/1, then you should call. My question is how will someone ever get these odds in say a heads up game or a game with just 3 players? The poor pot odds would tell you to fold every hand (assuming playing limit holdem here). This clearly isn't correct, so how does one handle this? Your odds of winning with a particular hand MUST improve as the number of players decline, which means the tables we see in books that quote outs and odds only apply against how many players?

Any guidance here would help me out of the starting blocks /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Cheers,
Adrian

[Pepsquad]

Hi Adrian. Welcome! I'm not an odds-guru by any means but I'll take a shot at your first question. There are different scenarios where you would want to calculate odds of making your hand on the next card dealt and odds of making your hand by the river. For the most part, you will want to calculate pot odds specific to the action you'll be taking right NOW. So when caluclating whether you should check/call/raise your 4-flush on the flop, you would look at that decision based on odds of making your hand by the turn. In another scenario, let's say you're in a multi-table tournament and you have that same 4 to the flush flop, but calling a bet or bets in front of you would mean you have to go all-in. In this scenario, you would calculate odds for flop to river. Hope that helps.

Pep.

[Adrian]

Thanks for the welcome Pepsquad. I appreciated you taking the time to respond to my questions. I'm puzzled though that you were the only one. It seems to me these were extremely fundamental questions to the whole game, and yet no one seems to know the answer or have a strong view?? Perhaps if I'm a little more patient someone will throw their hat into the ring and help out. This is the first forum I have signed up with as it seemed the most professional.

Adrian

[AngelicPenguin]

1) You typically just use the odds for the next card unless you're going all-in (in no-limit games, or your out of money at a limit game)
2) In a heads up game (or three handed), you don't usually try to draw to hands that would require pot-odds calculations. Big cards rule. For example, in full ring game (10 people), A3 offsuit is terrible, but heads up it is a great starting hand. Idea being if you get your A, you probably win the hand heads up, but against a full table you are probably dominated by an A with a bigger kicker. So in loose passive games with a lot of players, suited connectors and suited A's K's go up in value, while in short handed games or heads up games they go down. So, just to clarify, if I have 67 with a flop of 89T vs one player and they make a big bet, I'm gonna fold this if the pot is small. No way I'm getting the pot odds to call.

[K C]

There's different opinions here of course, so I'll give mine /images/graemlins/smile.gif

It's always preferable in my mind to calculate the odds for the whole hand. The ability to do this though is going to be based on having a fairly decent idea how the betting will develop, because you're not only going to have to calculate your chances of winning, you also need cost and benefit. While this is easier to do in limit, since the betting tends to be more predictable, it still can be applied to no limit, although you have to be more careful of course, and know your players better.

If you have the pot odds to see the next card, then you know for sure it's profitiable to do so, provided you aren't counting outs that can lose the hand. I still recommend using them, but discounting them (not a full out).

Choosing to call or raise is going to be a decision based upon a combination of being the favorite, and fold equity. Generally, we want to raise when we're the favorite, but there's some times when we're not that we still would want to when we're not. The first one is if the pot odds of the additional money contributed is favorable (higher than your odds of winning overall). The second is to take the pot down. The third is to get a free card.

In a heads up game, of course made hands are going to be more valuable, and drawing for the most part is going to be less valuable. You still want to calculate this in though. Heads up in particular, it's all about your chances of winning the hand, and drawing odds certainly contribute to that. Generally though, you're going to need something else to go with the draw to make it profitable, since your money odds are lower.


There's a whole lot of stuff to talk about here and it's way beyond a single post. Hope this helps though and I haven't confused you /images/graemlins/smile.gif

KC
http://kingcobrapoker.com

[Bad Lobster]

1. You should figure out the actual odds for this common situation. Doing it with the raw numbers: the odds of getting your suit on either of the next two cards is 1 minus the odds of NOT getting it: 1 - (38/47 x 37/46) = 0.349 or 1 in 2.8.


2. Your pot odds are based not on how many players there are to call the next round of bets, but on how much money is already in the pot. How do you get pot odds of 10 to 1 with only 3 players in the game? Easy--if it's a late betting round and there are already 10 bets in the pot, then it's worth staying in with a 10 to 1 chance.

3. Your last comment should be addressed as a separate question: how is it that "outs" don't seem to take into account the number of players in the pot? The answer is that they don't and you need to be aware of that. The most basic outs calculations are based on the presumption that if you get any of the cards in question, your hand will win. The more players in the pot, the less likely this is to be true. You can attempt to quantify this by assigning partial outs to cards that are iffy. For instance, suppose you estimate that if you get that king you're looking for, there's a 50% chance that your pair of kings will be the best hand. So count each king as half an out when calculating your chances.

[Adrian]

Thanks Angelic, A response worth waiting for /images/graemlins/smile.gif Following up on what you said and my original questions, am I therefore correct in assuming that:
1. All these books that have recommended starting hands really should have 9 sets of tables for each of 2-10 players? Or perhaps say 3 differents sets to make it easier.
2. Should pot odds only be calculated if you feel you don't have the best hand? In your example of 67 with a flop of89T in say a heads up game, when would you ever get enough pot odds to justify calling a big bet? It seems if you stuck strictly to pot odds with a small number of players you would always fold (unless you felt you had the best hand) and the other player(s) would start bluffing and winning even more hands? This seems like a suicide strategy. What am I missing?

Adrian

[Adrian]

More confused by the minute KC /images/graemlins/smile.gif No, really, your post was helpful. It does take quite a while and lots of practice to piece all the pieces together though. I do always laugh though when one person says one thing and someone else says something different LOL.

Can you tell me what 'fold equity' is please?

Adrian

[AngelicPenguin]

1. Usually with less than a full handed game you just assume that some of the players folded and play accordingly. For instance, if you are looking at starting hand charts for a ten handed game, and it says to raise ATs in middle position, you would raise from first position in a 7 handed or less game because we assume the first three non-existent players folded, putting us in middle position if we were first. That said, certain types of hands are virtually worthless against 3 or fewer players. Connector cards like T9, or suited connectors like 67s don't mean much in a very short handed game. For those type of games, your high cards mean everything. In a 3 handed game K7 is worth plenty while in even a 6 handed game it isn't worth anything.

2. In a very short handed game you shouldn't be playing hands like 67s at all. Stick with big cards, suited or other wise. 3 handed or less, any A (and often most K's) are worth pushing. So you are pretty much right. In a three handed game you won't be drawing to hands often, you will either flop a pair or represent that you flopped a pair and bet on that.

Hope that helps at all

[PJS]

If you have'nt got it already, a book that gives a comprehensive discussion on odds is "the Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky

[Adrian]

Yes it does thanks AP. One thing does seem clear to me though, and that is that a good hand MUST be lower ranked in a 3 handed game, as distinct from a say 7 handed game where 4 players have dropped, as the latter is choosing from a broader basket of hands. Therefore, the breakeven point in term of hand rankings MUST decline as the number of players decline. The only problem is I've never seen it clarified or quantified except very generally as you have AP. Of course trying to remember 9 different starting hand tables would be impossible generally.

[Adrian]

I recently acquried it along with a number of books. Unforutnately, I have way less time than I would like, to actually read what I would like to on my bookshelf. Having a 9-5 job is a big impediment LOL.

[EZE]

From David Skanlsky's book, you need to calculate your odds of hitting the flush first.

So 4 Clubs you know of ( Your 2 and 2 on table), 3 cards on table. which means you have 9 outs to make the flush ( 4 Clubs-13 Clubs total) in the book the flush draw is usually about a 5-1 shot.

2nd question, has number of players go down you should be improving or still have the best hand, but it comes down to reading players, a well timed raise on 4th street might make the other 2 players in a 3-way pot not wanna spend the extra just chasing a pair when you might be representing a flush, straigght or high 2-pair, again this well-timed semi-bluff raise will get you a pot when players are tight/passive

EZE

Next question to ask, how much is in pot, was it raised, who raised it and the person who raised it what do they do after the flop. This information I soo valuable, if you miss it, you might end up losing a monster pot because you got beat by higher Flush.

So lets say in a 4/8 game there is 50 dollars pre flop in pot, you are on a flush flush with A Clubs in hand, ( Best possible come hand), you beat out 4. Therefore right now pot odds are 50/4=12.5/1 which is higher than the 5-1 for the flush which means you should keep betting.

Your odds on the Turn is 1/9 x 1/9 ( 9 cards on turn makes your nut flush, 9 cards river makes your nut flush which means its 1/81 you can buffer those odds by doing a semi-bluff raise to get more money in pot to help boost the pot odds and keep folks around)