Theory of Poker: Chapters 5-7 Discussion

[MEbenhoe]

Well I'm trying something different for this section because I think in the first section some people might not have been able to ask questions they needed to ask because too much of the focus might have been on the discussion starter questions I put out there. I could be way off too, but for this section I'm just gonna post chapters to start posting under and then hopefully you'll post your thoughts and questions on these chapters. Whether this sucks and you think the other way was much better or if you like this better just let me know.

[MEbenhoe]

This section is for discussing Pot Odds

[sethypooh21]

I think the perhaps the most overlooked, and one of the more important concepts in this chapter is the relationship between position ond pot odds. P.41. We've all had it happen, we call a flop bet with a marginal draw thinking "pot odds" and suddenly it gets raised behind us and reraised by the orignal bettor. It's two back to us. It could get capped behind us. We might have correct odds to call each individual time, but as a whole, calling the 3-4 bets is clearly a losing proposition, all because we ignored the possibility of more action behind us.

[chaos]

I agree. This is an important concept. Caro also mentions that you can loosen up if the raiser or bettor was immediately to your left, then when it gets back to you you get to "close the action." If you do not get to close the action you must take into account the possibility of a raise behind you reducing your pot odds.

[Gamblor]

Agreed - I'll call with a ton of hands - bottom pair, overcards, etc. etc. when closing the action.

A lot of times I'll see a lot of turns if I'm the limper closest to the preflop raiser because I have the "relative button" - as in, assuming the preflop raiser bets the flop, I'll be last to act.

[As Zehn]

Reading the section on the impact of position on pot odds was worth the cost of the book.

[MEbenhoe]

This section is for discussing Effective Odds

[As Zehn]

I have a question on calculating odds. If you have four to a flush on the flop what are the odds of getting the flush by the river. Is it 9/38 + 9/37 = .48 and then 1/.48 = 2.083 to 1?

[BugsBunny]

1 - (38/47 * 37/46) = 0.3496762257

In plain English subtract the probability of not hitting the flush on either the turn or river from 1. You're left with the flush probability.

Odds are (1 - 0.3496762257)/0.3496762257 = 1.8597883598 to 1 against

The other way to do this is:
9/47 + (1 - 9/47) * 9/46 =
0.1914893617 + 0.8085106383 * 0.1956521739 =
0.1914893617 + 0.158186864 = 0.3496762257

In plain english, the probability of hitting on the turn (9/47) is added to the probability of hitting on the river (9/46) when you didn't hit the turn (1 - 9/47).

[Smokey98]

Can someone draw this out? Put it on a 3rd grade level for me. I'm just not getting that. So if you've 4 to the flush of spades then you need one of the remaining 9 spades to hit the flush. So that gives you a 9/47 or 9 that will hit and 38 that don't. I get that part. So would the odds of hitting it on the turn be 1/5.2? 47 divided by 9? So then how do you take that one step further to the river?