Re: Confused about pot odds and winning long term
The basic confusion here (as I think the first poster implied) is that your immediate odds are just one factor in your EV in a hand. Your EV is made up of how you play the hand out under all circumstances on all streets. You can think of your immediate odds as one way to quickly estimate your EV in a hand when the other factors don't dominate. In order to understand why your immediate odds maybe not be a good estimate of your EV you have to look at play later in the hand. J4 is a hand which is hard to play for many people on later streets. If you just flop a jack or a 4 its tough to know if you are ahead. So you tend not to extract maximal value yet you pay off at times. If you don't have a tough time in these places J4 might be +EV for you (but I wouldn't count on it if you or your friend are asking basic questions like this).
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