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pokerrazz · Guest

What is the best way for me to learn poker math(pot odds, implied odds, winning hand %, etc). As I play I am told that often I am wrong or right calling but I just dont get the math behind it all.

Bronco232 · Full House Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 197

I'd suggest picking up a book or two. Harrington's books will do, as will Phil Gordon's little green book.

Some of the first ones you could easily learn is that if you hold 4 to a flush on the flop, you have a 33% change of making your flush provided you get to see the remaining two cards. If you have only one card to go and you have 4 to a flush, you are 25%.

So a quick example:

You hold Ad 10 d

Board: Kd 7s 9d 2h

Lets say we have a pot of $10. Your opponent bets $1.50. Since you are almost certain to win this pot provided another diamond would come, this is a sure call. One of the 3 remaining Aces in the deck also may give you the pot. For this example, however, lets assume you NEED the diamond to win the hand. Technically, a bet up to $2.50 is callable, but much more than that would have to be a fold, unless you're playing .05/.10 against me, in which case you would call a $5 bet and hit your flush anyways, and throw me into a Phil Hellmuth type rant.

Here's a quick tip that you can write down and look at while playing that is included in Phil Gordon's book. It is the rule of 4 and 2.

You need to get in the habit of counting how many "outs" or cards out there that will give you what you believe to be the winning hand. For example:

Your opponent raises in early position, and you feel he has AK or AQ. You call from the button with 8h9h. The flop comes A, 8, 2 rainbow (all different suits). You can assume you are beat right now, but what are your chances to win this hand? Lets use the rule of 4. You can assume that one of the two remaining 8's or 3 remaining 9's will give you the best hand, right? That makes 5 "outs" or cards remaining in the deck to help you. With the turn and the river to go, we multiply this by 4, giving us a 20% chance of improving our hand and taking this pot. These percentages aren't dead on (I believe its really 21% in this case), but its a good rule of thumb. If the turn card comes a 3, we did not improve, but we can multiply our outs by two for our new percentage with one card to come. Still 5, but x 2 = 10% this time.

Again using a $10 pot, if your opponent bets a mere $1 on the flop, go ahead and call, but if he fires $3, you would need a 30% chance of improving, and you simply don't have that, so its a fold.

Knowing the rule of 4 and 2 is a good start to calculating pot odds and learning the math of poker. It will be good for your game to put your opponent on a hand and count your "out" cards. Even when you're not in a hand, calculate the outs you would have if you had stayed in, or pick a random hand and count them when the flop comes. Sometimes its tough to do because we may put our opponent on top pair when he actually has a set, meaning we're in fact drawing dead and have no outs! But that's part of what makes the game great.

Hope this helped a bit and good luck...

Strasse · Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 8:35 pm Post subject: Re: ...

Bronco232 · Full House Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 197

My bad...

It's more like 20% if holding no pair and nothing but a flush draw. The 25% comes when holding 1 pair and the flush draw. For instance, player A holds top pair after the turn and player B holds middle pair and a flush draw... This is about a 75/25 scenario.

Thanks Strasse.

dose160 · Pair Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 26 Location: Nunya Bidness

I would recommend David Sklansky's book "The Theory of Poker". In this book you will learn about pot odds, effective odds, implied odds, and more. This book has helped me alot with some of the math involved in poker. late.
Mo skazy

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