I too am struggling with some of the odds issues. To me, there are several layers of odds, some more complex than others.

At the simple end, you have some straightfoward situations - where you have the pot odds and the one card draw odds - I have become fairly proficient at handling these situations - such as where I have a flush draw and figure that if I hit it, I will win. To me, these are the most basic odds problems in poker and they are simple enough to calculate that you have no excuse for not doing so - and within a short period of time, you will find that you don't even need to calculate them because they will be second nature.

The next level is a similar situation, but where you also have to factor in implied odds - this is also, IMHO, not that complex.

What separates these from the more complex problems is that you are dealing with a situation where you strongly believe that you will win if you hit your hand.

Where I am now is in working through the situations where I am combining the odds with my reading skills - and in particular, in figuring out the odds of my opponent having certain hands or in factoring in the different odds of him having or hitting hands that will beat me and determining when is the right time to do what - so for example, trying to figure if I have trips, what are the odds of my opponent having a straight and then compariong those odds to the pot odds to determine whether it is correct to call a bet.

The key in these situations, IMHO, is to focus more on the betting patterns of your opponent and how he bet in the hand - and this is where it can get confusing. I think that too many average players simply look at their draw odds and go from there and don't consider the other side of the equation.

This is, I believe, the essense of playing long-term winning poker - it is the place where the art of reading comes together with the cath of calculating the various odds - and it is the ability to do this successfully that separates the great players from the average players.