[Cosimo]

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You have a 42% chance to win this hand

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i'm not sure that's a true statement.

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Indeed. You might note that I qualified this statement later in the same paragraph.

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there is a 42% chance that you will make your straight or flush.

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i think the odds are greater than that.

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oops [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

9 flush outs + 6 straight outs = 15 total outs.

15 outs, 47 turn cards = 31.9. 68.1% that you miss and 32.6% that you hit on the river. Total of 54%.

So, yeah, I was off. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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you could hit two running cards to get an overset.

You would have three-of-a-kind and villain who had a set would now have a full house.

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... but villain might only have two pair or one pair or an overpair ...

My point was, there's ways of winning that don't include hitting the straight or flush. He could be bluffing, he might have you beat but in such a way that one or two magic cards (that aren't str8 or flush cards) would help you win, etc.

The whole gist here is that, with a 54% chance of hitting your straight or flush, that loosely translates into a 54% chance of winning. It's extremely difficult to correct the chance-of-hitting calculation into chance-of-winning since villain's hand is unknown. If you have reads that suggest he has a set, etc, you can plug those into twodimes and get a precise percentage, but ....

So, I take the 54% chance of hitting as a 54% chance of winning. The primary thing here is to decide to call or not, and at this point, OP is looking for 25% or better. It doesn't matter if it's 42% or 54% or 52.7937%; it's definitely greater than 25%.

And I'm not going to pick nits on the 25% [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]