Counting the Pot

in live limit, what are some tips on counting the pot as play goes on? usually i just eyeball it and guesstimate. is that ok?
also, this seems like a stupid question but, do you deduct money taken out for the rake when calculating pot odds? does it matter?

[PJM1206]

I try to keep track as I go along by counting the number of bets ( not $ but samll bets and big bets) I make times the number of people in the pot. So for exmaple:
preflop 4 people I ended up putting in 2 SB due to raise so that is 8 SB. Flop comes 3 callers for 1SB each is now (6+8)14SB or 7 BB (1/2 the SB). Turn heads-up 2 more BB for 9 BB in total etc etc

[rt1]

best way is to remember the players in on each st. try to think of it as in terms of sb (small bets) and bb (big bets). if you practice it will become very easy to you after a few sessions.

the rake does effect your pot odds for lower limits. when they rake 4$ out of a 2/4 game you are going to lose 1bb. however, any 2/4 live game that has under 10bb pots is WAY too tight [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] . you almost always have implied odds in these games as well... so 1bb less in the pot when you are drawing is not going to mess you up too much.

take care

[AaronBrown]

Another tip is whatever you do, don't be obvious about it. The trouble with eyeballing the pot is it can lead to tells. A novice will bet without looking when he has a made hand or a bluff, but take a hard look when he has a drawing hand. I'm not going to insult you by suggesting you could be this obvious, but it's easy to let subtle tells creep into your game.

You should know the amount in the pot before it comes to you, but if you don't, it won't hurt your game much if you miscompute the pot odds by a bet or two. It will hurt your game a lot if anyone notices a difference in your behavior when you're calculating.

thanks for the good answers, everyone.