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Old 09-22-2003, 09:17 PM
Copernicus Copernicus is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,018
Default Re: Pot Odds Help for a green newbie

Odder may have made a mistake, and may not have made a mistake. If it is clear that you arent going to have the odds to draw the second card (ie you will have less than 4.9/1), then you can only play if you have the odds to hit it on the first card. (eg you are only getting 2 small bets/1 now and there is only one other player in the hand. If you call his bet there will be 4 small bets/2 big bets in the pot after the turn. If he now makes a big bet you are only getting 3/1 not 4.9/1 and wont be able to call, therefore you cant call on the flop either.

Another way to look at it is it will cost you a minimum of 1.5 big bets to see two cards. The pot (not counting your additional 1.5 bets) will be the current 1 big bet, plus the opponents 1.5 big bets, or 2.5/1.5, which isnt enough to call "both cards in advance" and you arent getting one draw odds either, so you should be folding. Even if you think he will call a raise when you hit you are only getting 3.5/1.5. (note that I didnt change it to 3.5/2.5 because presumably that extra raise has no risk of loss..you only raise if you hit, and if you hit you assume you are the winner. If there is some risk that you still wont win even if you hit, you either must reduce your outs for those that help the opponents hand also, or add a portion of the additional bet to the denominator to represent the amount of it that might lose. This is more general version of the standard "implied odds" calculation, which, by only including the current bet in the denominator, is assuming there is no risk associated with any future bets).
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