Loose games when you can almost never protect your hand

[Xhad]

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Ok.. so for leading, I should only look at the pot and players on that street, but to call I look at the overall pot.. when you say value bet I assume you mean raising bets?

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Betting or raising. You put more money in the pot on purpose when your hand is above average.

Ok, and with calling it's more for continuation.. I think. Anyway I get it a lot more now, thanks a lot for your patience.

[bottomset]

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Thank you, I knew "pot size" referred to the total pot up to that point, but others insist it's only the pot bet on a certain street (hence 1/n, with n players on that street). That's why it made no sense to me, why should I not consider all the dead bets in the pot (like the 1000 in your example)?

Now 1/n is used with value bets as you said, but you DID consider dead money in the pot, which is what I was trying to say. You look at the whole pot, not just the pot bet on that round.

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ok you really don't get it yet, here goes

Pot Equity deals with whether or not you should bet/raise on a given street, it is simply the % of the time you expect to have the best hand by the river

now say its 3handed(counting you), and your pot equity is 40%, there are 3ppl, so each of you put in 33% of the bets for the round, so you have an edge of 7%, so you should bet/raise

ok second example, its still 3handed, but your potequity is only 25%, now your share of the bets is 33%, you should not raise. when determining this for the most part the pot doesn't matter, if the pot is large, and a raise can potentially knock out some players behind you, and increase your chances of winning the pot, then a raise can be good, even if you don't have a potequity edge

ok now for pot odds, this is for determining if you should call or fold

it is the size of the pot divided by the # of bets you need to call, so if there is 10bets in the pot, and you need to call 1bet, you are getting 10/1

ok, if you don't believe you have the best hand, but say have a Flush draw, you have 9outs, its the turn for simplicity, you are 4.11/1 against for making your flush .. so you should clearly at least call(depending on the number of players in the pot, a raise might be profitable)

ok, that works. thanks.

[MrWookie47]

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this is a troll account, everyone.

nh

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I perused through some of his other posts. I don't think he's a troll, but he's pushing the limits. I do think he just needs to sit back, have a beer, take a deep breath, and relax.

I haven't offered up a link to this classic thread in a while. OP, read it, get a good chuckle, and know that the loose games you're griping about are by far the most profitable you can play in. Also, a lot of people in this thread have tried to be helpful. I'd be a good idea to go back and be sure you understand what they're saying.

A couple people have made posts that I understood and made sense. Half the people just berated me. I'll look at that thread.

[MrWookie47]

This is a blunt board. We tell it like it is, and we don't bother watering it down with flowery language. I looked through the thread. Only Miles was actually berating you, and don't worry about that. He berates everybody. I'd advice you to get a thicker skin. One, because your good hands will get cracked, and you're going to have to play through that. Two, because as you're learning here, people are going to tell you a play of yours was stupid if it was stupid. They're doing it in the name of helping you, but you have to be able take a little constructive criticism.

[Felipe]

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A couple people have made posts that I understood and made sense. Half the people just berated me. I'll look at that thread.

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ya - they're meanies.

pot equity is about when to bet/or raise.
pot odds is knowing when to call or fold.

You can bet or raise if your pot equity is more than your fair share.

Your fair share is that "1/n" thing explained above. If the pot is 5 handed, your "share" is 20% (see? 1/5)

If you have a drawing hand, you can determine pot equity by simple math.

A very good and basic example is the flush draw. If you have a flush draw, 9 cards in the deck will make you the flush (sometimes you make the flush and lose, but most of the time you make the flush you'll win)

Since only 9 cards can help you then you can quickly calculate your pot equity by multiplying your outs by 4. (this is a very quick and not 100% accurate way of determining pot equity on the flop with 2 cards to come) So, with our 9 outs, 9X4 = 36%.
We have 5 players, our "fair share" is 20%, but our pot equity is 36%. We can now profitably bet and raise and bet and raise for value!

For value means for profit! If all 5 people call all of your bets and raises, you are making money - this includes whether or not you make your flush (win or lose).

Pot equity without a drawing hand.
You might not be able to accurately calculate pot equity for "made hands".

numeri gave us this:

Board: K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
Hand 1: 38.2767 % [ 00.38 00.01 ] { A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] }
Hand 2: 07.6233 % [ 00.07 00.00 ] { Ks4h }
Hand 3: 12.8385 % [ 00.13 00.00 ] { Tc7h }
Hand 4: 19.5628 % [ 00.19 00.01 ] { 9s8d }
Hand 5: 07.3060 % [ 00.07 00.01 ] { random }
Hand 6: 07.1848 % [ 00.07 00.01 ] { random }
Hand 7: 07.2080 % [ 00.07 00.01 ] { random }

Here we have pot equity of 38%. What does that mean? that means we will *WIN* this hand around 38 percent of the time.

But wait, there are 7 players. So 1/7 = .14 or 14%. Our fair share is 14%, but our pot equity is much much higher! so we should bet and raise. Even if we LOSE this hand, that doesn't matter. if these scenarios come up again and again and we make the correct mathematical play, we are sure to win! Maybe not today or tomorrow or this year. But we will -- cause the math said so!

Pot Odds.

You calculate pot odds when you think you do not have the best hand. you need cards to help you make the best hand so that you can win the pot. Poker isn't about winning pots, though, its about winning money in the long run; win or lose today or tomorrow.

If we have KQo on a board of A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and we're sure, by the betting patters of that kid with the dorky glasses, he's got a big ace (maybe Ace/King).

Only 4 cards will make us a sure winner (Ten [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img],ten [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img],ten [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img],and ten [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]) That means we'll hit it our straight 4/46 times (4 "tens" out of 46 unseen cards). This boils down to approx 1/12 (to make it easier on my soft brain).

In odds form, we can say our draw is a 11:1 underdog. We'll miss our draw 11 times, and hit it once. That means, that if our opponent with the geeky glasses bets, the pot should have at LEAST 11 times his bet.

This includes ALL of the money contributed by all of the players up to that point. It doesn't matter if they fold - that money belongs to the eventual winner of the pot. Forget the folders, they're history! The money in the middle belongs to no one - yet!

Eg. take our above example
KQ on a AJ2 board
If "dorky" bets $100, should we call? Say he bets $2 instead? What then?

I hope you realize that the question isn't complete. You don't know what your pot odds are. If the pot contains $1100, and dorky bets $100, we should call. We'll be making a little money wehther we win or lose this particular pot. If the pot contained $10 instead, and dorky bets $2 (a smaller amount than $100) we should fold. WHY? we are getting $10:$2 on our money. That's only 5:1 pot odds on a 11:1 draw. That's not profitable, so we fold.

I hope you understand the differences between pot equity and pot odds now.

Pot equity is for betting/raising.
pot odds is for calling/folding.

wow that is very helpful, thank you.

so for example if someone bets into me on the river, i'd use pot odds to see if i should call or fold, and if i should call, use pot equity to see if i should call or raise. and if he were to reraise, i probably don't have the best hand so the pot would have to be huge to call that bet.

thanks again!

[Xhad]

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so for example if someone bets into me on the river, i'd use pot odds to see if i should call or fold, and if i should call, use pot equity to see if i should call or raise. and if he were to reraise, i probably don't have the best hand so the pot would have to be huge to call that bet.

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This is mostly correct. You should generally bet/raise for value if you think you are a huge favorite to have the best hand. You should take pot odds into account when deciding whether to call the river with a marginal calling hand or not. And very few people have the audacity to 3-bet-bluff the river. However, the river is a bit different from earlier rounds because there are no more cards coming.

If it's preflop and you open-raise AA on the button, you would prefer your opponents incorrectly call (or raise), but even if you know they would correcty fold you should still raise to deny a free flop since the big blind can always outflop you with his random trash. If on the river you know that your opponents will always play correctly according to your cards (calling with better hands and folding worse ones), you should not bet because it's not accomplishing anything. Similarly, if an opponent bets into you, and you think he has a bluff 70% of the time, and a hand that beats you 30% of the time, you should not raise even as the "favorite" because he won't call your raise that 70% of the time he's bluffing.

This isn't that important a point in loose games because if they're calling you preflop with 62s, they're probably calling with a pair of 6s on the end; checking an overpair/good top pair on the river in these games is usually terrible. However, the above point does tend to apply to unimproved high-card hands if the pot somehow gets shorthanded after the flop. Betting the river as a bluff won't work because they won't fold any pair, but betting for value doesn't work because even against terrible calling stations you can't like your hand that much if you're called. You will still sometimes win after finding out they missed their small gutshots or whatever, so just check and see what happens.