Implied Odds

[LesWormMurphy]

Having read the first 30 pages of Sklansky, Miller and Malmuth's "Small Steaks Hold 'Em", I'm now slightly familiar with pot odds, implied odds and pot equity.

Now are these things that eventually become 2nd nature and automatic because having just learned these aspects of poker, applying them is tricky for me at this point.

Secondly, exactly how do Implied Odds work? You estimate the opponent's bet? I'm a little left in the dark with that.

Thanks.

[closer2313]

Yes, you have to estimate how much you think you will win on future betting rounds. For example. Its the turn, you have an open end straight draw. There are 4 big bets in the pot and you need to call one. You are getting 4:1 pot odds. You need 4.8:1 to make it a profitable call. You know that if you make your straight on the river you will win one bet. You implied odds are 1 bet. Now you can make a profitable call on the turn because you implied odds + current pot odds are greater than 4.8:1.


Did that help?

[LesWormMurphy]

That does clear some stuff up, yes. But it also raises another one. Being that the only casino in my area plays very fast, instead of calculating exact pot odds, is it equally effective to memorize the correspondence between the number of outs to pot odds?

For example:
If I know that 8 outs is equivalent to 4.75-to-1 Break Even Pot Odds, is that just as good as actually cycling through the mathematics?

Thanks--
Implementing mathetmatical probabilities will surely improve my long-run game, but firstly I need to fully understand it. As you can tell, math isn't really my thing.

[diebitter]

Yeah it's best to just memorise them (at least to the nearest whole number, but you can do say 4.75:1 for 8 outs, if you want)

Another trick some people use is you multiply the number of outs by 2 to give a rought %age of likelihood of hitting the out per round, so for 8 outs, take it as 16% (it's actually 17.4% for 4.75:1, but near enough).

Similarly, multiply by 4 for the odds of hitting at either the river or the turn.

[Siegmund]

Yes, counting outs + keeping track of pot size and making a rough mental comparison is what most people do.

And yes, implied odds means considering everything that goes into the pot vs. everything it will cost you to see a showdown. In NL and PL games it's a very big factor in the early betting, the only reason some hands get played. (Also why some poor 7stud hands will pay a bringing but not a full bet to see 4th street.)

And now, I am going to be a heretic.

In limit holdem, A) implied odds are insignificant in many situations unless you are playing against confirmed maniacs and calling stations, and B) implied odds are *against you* in a lot of situations where you aren't drawing to the absolute nuts or close to it.

People like to look for reasons to stay in with their marginal hands, and they invoke the implied odds fairy to justify playing small suited connectors in middle position, coldcalling with suited aces, and other such idiocy.

Backdoor draws and hard-to-see straights get decent action. Seeing three to a flush come completely kills the action except from people who have strong redraws. Small flushes bring in only one or two extra big bets when they win, and get slaughtered for five or more the 10 to 20% of the time they lose. Seriously, I believe a small flush draw is gettin exact pot odds or even slightly reverse implied odds in any game that isn't full of calling stations.

Small pairs making sets actually do get decent implied odds; they get good action from top pair and two pair, and their losses to bigger sets and to surprise straights and flushes aren't too frequent... but those rare losses again can be huge.

So, once again: implied odds means that draws to the nuts are worth more than their face value, but beware of counting up your extra wins but skipping over your extra losses. A lot of low limit players really would play better if they had never heard of implied odds and stuck to making sure they had correct pot odds.

[LesWormMurphy]

Okay, so let's say I play with Pot Odds and not Implied Odds-- is this the correct formula of getting to your odds:

Its $1-2 Hold'Em and your contemplating drawing to your open-ended straight and your on 4th street. You now have about 17% ((4x2)+1) of catching it. Now say there's $50 in the pot--
So is (.17 x 50 + 2)the correct mathetmatics? And once you figure that out ($10.50), is that the amount of money you can afford to spend to make the draw worthwhile? If not, what is $10.50?