Hand/Pot Odds

Is there a good book out there that deals strictly with hand and pot odds? Thanks in advance for any help.

Gary

Not that I am aware of. The closest thing I can think of is Mike Petriv's "The Hold'em Odds Book" which deals with odds and probabilities.

Jim, I just got your hold'em book, which I am enjoying. However I wanted to hear a little more about the thought process when contemplating expected odds on both the flop and the turn. You and Bob state that doing math at the table isn't practical--but on the other hand, Abdul Jalib, in his page on the web on how to play drawing hands, proposes a formula for multiplying your expected pot odds times your "untainted" outs; he seems to suggest that you can do this from both turn and river, gives an out table in each case for various hands and hand vs. hand confrontations, and says the whole process (counting the pot, figuring the likely action to come, and doing the math) can become "nearly subconscious." Is Abdul unusually gifted with on-the-fly math, as some people are, or do you think there's merit to trying to learn his approach?


I know that with a great deal of experience and thought away from the tables, this issue becomes less relevant; but I'm still curious as to what you think of Abdul's strategy.

I would say that Abdul is unusually gifted at doing this. I don't know any players who claim they actually do this sort of thing at the table. They tend to take a more simplistic approach, like whether or not the pot was raised or, how many guys are in in the pot, in order to decide if it is "large". Most players are thinking about the range of hands the bettor or raiser may be on, what the other guys might hold, and what they think their winning chances are.

geez, dont you ever flop a gutshot?


you look at the size of the pot, see if you can peel (assuming here youre not betting) for a single bet or if it will somehow be more than one bet, whether your four outs are probably live or not (figure flushes into the mix as well as possible holdings for your opponents (sometimes you might figure one of your pairs might be good or something else ...), and the implied odds (expected action if you do get lucky), as well as naturally if youre drawing to nuts or not.


what is a gutshot, anyway, 10-1?


brad