[Catt]

I just got King Yao's book a few days ago and plan on reading it thoroughly two weeks from now while on vacation -- I've skimmed some of it and it looks like a solid read. I would have recognized DIPO but not EPS just yet [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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((I'm calling here because I am only a 5-1 dog to hit my 4 outer on the Turn and I'm getting well over 18-1(9-1) with implied odds.

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Here's where the misunderstanding may lay. You are not a 5:1 dog to hit your 4-outer, you are a 10.75:1 dog to hit on the turn (4 cards of 47 remaining). You are roughly a 5:1 dog to hit your 4-outer on the turn or the river, but this assumes that you will see the river.

If you're trying to figure out what your odds are when you're seeing all five board cards (most refer to these odds as "effective odds" though I am not sure Yao does), then you need to make some estimate of what the turn action looks like. And the more estimates you make about future actions, the less certain your analysis becomes (for example, BB could hit a favorable card on the turn and lead into MP, MP could raise, etc.). If we assume that BB calls the flop raise, MP bets the turn, then we are going to have to call 2 BBs (the 2 SBs on the flop because of MP's flop raise, plus the 1 BB on the turn from MP's expected turn bet), and we're doing so in order to win a pot that is expected to be 10 or 11 BBs before any river action (depending on whether BB calls the turn or not) -- we're getting about 5:1 on about a 5:1 shot over two streets.

All of this changes of course if the bettting is different from what we expect. BB could reraise the flop; MP could cap it (we're not happy with our flop call then!). Or BB could lead the turn and MP could raise (or BB hits but checkraises, trapping us for 2 bets on the turn). Again, there are a lot of variables that make our estimates not much more than educated guesses.

With the exception of a strong flush draw (with which we will almost always have the odds to see the river in a 6-handed pre-flop hand), I think you'd be better off just thinking about odds on a street-by-street basis. Especially with a gutshot where we might have the pot or implied odds to peel a card on the flop but very often will not have the odds to see the river once the bets double on the turn, I think you're probably just better off taking it one street at a time.

In your hand, I think the flop call is pretty close -- 2 BBs is certainly possible to make up when we hit the turn, but the possibility that BB 3-bets must influence our estimate of how many bets we're going to have to put in to see the turn.

Anyway - I rambled on enough. I hope this explanation helps.