help!!!

i'm having problems understanding the odds of me winning a particular hand.

i was playing in a game around my mates house. i had never played there before. i sat at the table for 55minutes without playing a hand. i then got dealt 6,6. i was the big blind ($10) and everyone hand folded apart from 1 person, who raised $10. i called(because he was someone who played most hands, so i thought he didn't have much). the flop came 6, 2, q. i checked. he bet $40. i re-raised all-in for this reason; i felt, at best, he only had q,? (giving him a pair).

the question i have is this: how do i calculate my chances of winning the hand after the flop? i thought i had the best hand at that moment, but with two cards left, it could be beaten?

please help

[AKQJ10]

Well, the simplest way is to go to something like http://www.twodimes.net/poker and type in your guess at his hand, say QJ-offsuit.

But if you want us to walk through the odds of him hitting a runner-runner full house to beat your set, we can. (I think it's like 5%; sadly the same happened to me last weekend in a NL hand at Foxwoods!)

Regardless, if he drew out with queens vs. your set of sixes, it was a very bad beat.

[Pov]

If all he has is a Q and an unpaired card then you're over 98% to win because he can't win by hitting running 2's since it is smaller than a 6. Otherwise it would be 95%.

thanks for both your replies, however 1. how did you work that out? and 2. how do i work that out when i'm sat at a table?

is it just something you learn, or is there a mathamatical way?

[AKQJ10]

The 95% came from running my bad beat (TTT vs. KKJ) thru the link above. My opponent hit running jacks to make jacks full, btw, or I wouldn't remember the story to tell you. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I can't imagine any practical reason you'd need to calculate this to 1% accuracy at the table. You know that you usually have the best of it by far with a set. (QQ would have you almost beat, drawing to the case six (http://poker.wikicities.com/wiki/Case), but set-over-set is rare.) If he draws out, you know it was a bad beat and that putting your money in was correct unless you thought he might have a bigger set.

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
thanks for both your replies, however 1. how did you work that out? and 2. how do i work that out when i'm sat at a table?

is it just something you learn, or is there a mathamatical way?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not practical to do the math at the table most of the time though for common situations you can memorize certain odds. In this case there's really no math to do. Either the guy has QQ or you're a huge favorite. Actually, if he has a hand like 88 he's in better shape than if he has a Q because hitting the 8 doesn't give you a full house, but that's still only a two-outer so you're sitting at around 91% against a pocket pair higher than 6's.

There are a ton of good hand matchup websites and software applications out there. I really like Poker Stove (http://www.pokerstove.com/) because of its ability to evaluate against hand ranges and random hands rather than just straight matchups.