Pot odds vs your read percentage

[SA125]

Scenario - Typical 10-20 game. You've been the aggressor and have built up the pot. It's now a call to you to close out the river action.

There's 11BB's in there and you only have to be right 1 out of 11 to make this call.

But your read is that you can't win this pot. Whether it's based on how the betting or this board went, you don't think you're good here.

You're as good as most at reading boards and the play and would put your odds on being wrong here at a reasonable 15-1.

So, do you call here because the pot is big at 11BB's? Or do you fold because your confident you're not getting the 15-1 odds on your read?

[Arnie]

depends on the player, and who you are playing against, and it depends on how your oppenent played the hand...

did he bet out every round?
did he call every round?
did he call the flop, check raise the turn, then bet out on the river? .

You could justify folding, and you could justify calling, its just how you see the situation.

[Lou Krieger]

[ QUOTE ]
So, do you call here because the pot is big at 11BB's? Or do you fold because your confident you're not getting the 15-1 odds on your read?

[/ QUOTE ]

These kinds of questions make for interesting academic exercises. But in the heat of battle, although your assessment of the pot odds is likely to be correct, the odds you assign to the correctness of your read is only an estimate at best. Since the margin for error that surrounds this estimate can be quite large, it's tough coming up with answers that you can rely on with any degree of accuracy.

When you begin mixing "guestimated" percentages into your equations, you're likely to be waaaay off.

Just food for thought...

_____
Lou Krieger
Raise your game with Lou Krieger, author of "Poker For Dummies," at Royal Vegas Poker.
http://www.royalvegaspoker.com/lou

[Ed Miller]

Just food for thought...

Why does your food always contain a healthy portion of spam? Lou, you are the ONLY person who still posts with a spam-containing "signature." You know you aren't supposed to. You know signatures were removed for precisely that reason. Why do you persist? I find it disrespectful to the forum.

[Ed Miller]

There's 11BB's in there and you only have to be right 1 out of 11 to make this call.

Actually, it's 1 out of 12, but who's counting.

You're as good as most at reading boards and the play and would put your odds on being wrong here at a reasonable 15-1.

If you can ACCURATELY determine how often you are still ahead, then you should fold. But most people tend to FAR OVERESTIMATE the chances they are beaten. It's a symptom of montsers under the bed syndrome. My advice is that, if you think you need to ask this question, you should continue calling. Not as a rag on you... just as a gague of the confidence you have in such a read.

[Monty Cantsin]

If your chances of winning are 15 to 1 and the pot is giving you 11 to 1 you should fold. That part is easy. The hard part is calculating your chances of being ahead. If you want to be conservative than give yourself a big margin of error on the estimation of your winning chances. But once you settle on a figure the decision of whether to fold should be strictly determined by whether the pot is giving you odds greater or equal to this amount.

Right?

/mc

[SA125]

As far as who's counting, clarifications in the scenario are appreciated. I agree with your suggestion to keep calling. A nice pot is all that matters.

I purposely avoided number of callers or h/u because I didn't want to get into protected pot scenarios. My question was about the faith in your reads compared to the size of the pot.

The good news is my reads on the river are almost always right before the action gets to me. The bad news is knowing I'm paying off 10 or 11 of those 12 times leads to mistakes. Even though they're rare, they cost me pots. Thanks again.

BTW - I saw you're 1st article quiz. ATs. Good subject. Nice job.

SA

[SA125]

I think Ed and Lou are right here by pointing out that accurately putting a number on my percentage of correct reads has a small margin of error. I don't think you can be that strict with your reads in a nice pot scenario. It's not as easy as pot odds.

I found it as a leak. Even though they say only good players fold, I was playing well and then folding away the occassional pot in situations other than those that good players fold in. It's better to call and hate paying off in nice sized pots than fold and want to pound someone when it was a winner.

SA

[muck_nutz]

As you problem know the math is easy. Fold. As others have attempted to say (but havn't done very well) is that the distribution of error is not symmetrical (if it was then its still a fold) with most mid limit players tending to under estimate their chances of winning. I call it the mid limit HE disease 'cuz its ones of the more common and easy to see leaks in even good players. JAM, JAM, ..., JAM, get bet into on the river, stop and think really hard, fold. Its far rarer to be right then I see it.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

Just to set the record straight, I agree completely with Ed. We have posting guidelines and I strongly believe that they are part of the reason why this site is so successful. Lou Krieger, like everyone else, needs to respect the integrity of these forums.

Best wishes,

Mason