The Theory of Poker (Page 205)

[Fat Tony]

I am on my second reading of the greatest book ever written.
I may be having a mental block, but on page 205, in the second paragraph,Sklansky writes "The Question is: Are your chances of winning the pot better than the odds you are getting from the pot, either because your hand is better than your opponet's or because your oppenent is bluffing ?
IF YOU THINK YOUR CHANCES ARE BETTER, YOU CALL. If not, you
fold." I thought it was if the "pot odds" are better you call ??? In the third paragraph on the next page I think that is what is written in the fifth sentence ???? Any clarification would be appreciated!! Thank You !!

[pudley4]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
IF YOU THINK YOUR CHANCES ARE BETTER, YOU CALL. If not, you
fold." I thought it was if the "pot odds" are better you call ???

[/ QUOTE ]

The statements:

"The chance of winning is better than the pot odds" and
"The pot odds are better than the chance of winning"

are not opposite statements. They mean the same thing.

When we talk about pot odds being "better" than our odds of winning, what we mean is the pot is giving us more money than we should expect. For example, if we are 11-1 to hit our gutshot, the pot is $15, and the bet is $1, we are getting 15-1 pot odds, so we say the pot odds are "better" because we'll win money than we should.

Now if you look at just the chance of winning (1 in 12) vs what the pot is giving ($15) you'll see that your chances of winning are better than what the pot is giving (i.e. you'll win more from the pot than it will cost you to play).

So either way we are saying the same thing.

If we say the pot odds are "worse" than we need, it means the pot pays us less than our odds of hitting. We can also say our chances of hitting are "worse" than the what the pot is giving us. These two also mean the same thing.

[edit]It comes down to how we define "better". The odds of the next card being a heart are the same as the odds of the card being a club. But if someone were paying us 3-1 if it's a heart and 5-1 if it's a club, we'd say we're getting "better" odds on the club.

On the other hand, if we look at the odds of the next card being a heart (3-1) vs the odds it is black (1-1), we'd say it's "better" odds the next card is black.[/edit}

[Easy E]

"'The chance of winning is better than the pot odds' and
'The pot odds are better than the chance of winning' are not opposite statements. They mean the same thing."

ummm, not sure I agree, in that it's confusing to use "better" in both sentences.
Really, they can say "better" in the first one but "higher" should be used in the second statement to be completely accurate out of context...

But it is a general understanding, or practice, to use them interchangeably...
Mrs. Quibble

[Louie Landale]

If you have a clear underdog hand (that is, you will probably not win the show-down), its best to describe your "chances" as your "hand-odds" or "losing-odds" or "odds-against-you-winning": the number of times you lose divided by the number of times you win. Compare that directly to the "pot-odds" which is the size of the pot divided by the size of the bet.

[1] "If the pot-odds are higher than the odds-against-you-winning you call, otherwise fold" is correct.

Now, your "chances of winning" is INVERSELY proportional to the "odds-against-you-winning": Increasing your "chances" (say from 20% to 25%) REDUCES the "odds-against" (say from 4:1 to 3:1 against); so "If your chances of winning are higher than your pot-odds you call" is the same as my statement [1] above; and is also correct.

Using Sklansky's "chance of winning" phrase makes the concept easier to understand, but using the "odds-against" phrase makes actual calculations easier.

- Louie