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Texas Holdem Pot Odds
Pot Odds is about helping you
with the decisions you make playing online texas holdem and
even when to make the correct call based on the expected return
on your money. This is not to say you will win all the time
but your chances (money odds) will improve and eventually
you will catch a nice break now and again. Every time you
make a decision or react to what another player does in Online
Texas Holdem you are taking and or laying odds. Yes sometimes
you have a gut feeling that this guy is bluffing and you go
all in but most of the time your decisions should be made
on purely mathematical odds or pot odds. For example you have
7h8h (in the BB) and the flop comes down Ks Qd 7c with three
people in the hand. You check and the player following you
bets the pot and the other player calls. Now you are up against
it and you have got to assume that one of the two players
has either a K or a Q and that your pair of sevens are no
good. Basically you have 5 outs that might result in your
winning and that means that your 10% chance (approx) of hitting
your card on the turn for 4 – 1 money odds is telling
you to fold. Course when you fold the “7” hits
and if you call a blank hits. In this case you listen to the
math and fold since you are getting 4 to one odds on your
money and you have a 10 to one shot of hitting your cards
(and you are not sure if you get your card that you will still
win the hand).
Often in Online No Limit Holdem
you are faced with the following decision; “Do they
have it or not?” over and over again. You will note
that most of the time they have it. Since at the level most
people play bluffing is not a profitable alternative.
All this to say that knowing
your pot odds is important if you plan on making money in
No Limit Texas Holdem. You must have an immediate idea of
the odds of making or defending your hand in any given situation.
Furthermore you need to be able to compare the odds you are
getting against the money odds you are getting (or giving
if you are betting).
In a No Limit Texas Holdem Tournament
you better know your pot odds inside out because I can promise
you that the best players (the one’s that win over and
over and over again) know their pot odds so well that if you
don’t know them you are finished before you start. Most
of the big winners on any poker site (Texas Holdem Tournament
players) never want to risk there money on a coin flip early
on. The players that do go all in early are amateurs and you
don’t have to worry about them much. The good players
prefer to wait and grind out small pots from amateurs and
play position to their advantage (with or without good cards).
Like it or not there are situations
that the best players need to make the all in move to survive
in a tournament and when this happens they are looking to
be in a dominating position preflop if they go all in. No
they don’t always win their all in’s but they
usually have the best of it going in and that is the key to
being a good player in No Limit Texas Holdem.
Here are some crazy stats for
Online Texas Holdem players. Hard to beliefe but there are
1,326 possible two-card combinations for your starting hand.
If you play a hand to the flop you will see a total of just
under 20,000 possible flops (19,600 to be exact). In fact
there are a remarkable 2,118,760 total possible combinations
on the board. All this to say you need to play a lot of online
texas holdem tournaments to see the same board twice. Forget
the board for a second. How often do you see the same hands
go heads up preflop for all the marbles – namely AK
vs AQ or AK vs AA or AA vs KK or AK vs KQ. All this means
is that too many people are reading these silly books and
that they understand that if you are going to put your tournament
on the line it might as well be with a solid hand preflop.
You know that AK vs Q6 is only a 3/2 favorite or a 60/40 favorite.
Online players go nuts when they lose to Q6 when they have
AK as they think they should win that 95% of the time …
but the mathematical truth is that AK beats Q6 sixty percent
of the time. Who in the heck plays Q6 off suit anyway. Someone
who knows that they have a 40% chance of winning and they
want to make a stand right there.
Is it worthwhile to know that
your odds of getting a pocket pair are 16/1, and catching
a set or quads on the flop 12% (one in 7.4). The chances of
getting pocket aces dealt to you are 221/1. Who cares if you
have no pair you will make one on the flop 32.5% of the time
and by the river 49% of the time. Well all this information
works back into your game and you need to know it to make
rational decisions. Is it important to know that if you are
holding two suited cards that you will make a flush 8.4% of
the time by the river but catch your flush on the flop only
1 in 118 flops. Yes of course it is important to know this
as every little percentage here or there helps you out in
the game. In fact going back to your two suited cards you
should flop a flush draw 11% of the time. In other words if
you have a pair or two suited cards you are likely to hit
your set more often then your flush draw. WOW! But low and
behold if you get that flush draw on the flop you will hit
it 34.97% of the time. So how about that if you are in a hand
with two suited cards and the flop shows two of your suits
and someone goes all in and two callers are there and it is
your turn to decide what to do? The math is telling you to
call since you are getting likely 4 to one on your money on
a 35% event. You are here to gamble so gamble already! So
what if you get an open ended straight draw and you only complete
the straight 31.45% of the time? Well if you are getting six
to one money odds you go! My buddy says: “I’ll
Go!” – so GO already!
No Limit Texas Hold’em
Tournaments are about survival and knowing (or suspecting)
that you are in a dominant position with better then 50 –
50 chances so you put your money on the line. It is easy to
go all in when you flop a full house but is that the right
thing to do? I have seen players do it and everyone else folds
… NICE PLAY! The other element of Texas Hold’em
is the psychology involved in convincing your opponent that
he has the best of it when he is drawing dead and some how
getting him to risk all his chips at this point in time. You
make more money getting other people to play stupidly then
you do when you bluff. The basic strategy involved in fishing
people to bet is to get the nut out of position and to check
to an aggressive player who has position on you. That is the
sweetest feeling of all to see someone go all in when they
have zero chance of winning.
Often you will make a play
on a pot just because you have calculated the odds in your
favor (ie an open ended straight draw with a flush draw on
the flop) even though you may not be ahead in the hand when
you make the move to bet aggressively. This aggressive betting
into a likely scenario is important because you know in advance
if your opponent re-raises you all in you are going to call.
It is very important to know how you plan on playing before
you make a move and how you will react to your opponent if
and when he makes a counter move. If you bet at a pot with
the intention of folding if your opponent goes over the top
of you for all your chips then you have to know it before
you make your bet. Not think about it after your opponent
has made the all in move. On the other hand you have to know
when you are pot committed and when you are going to call
a move back over the top by your opponent.
Most of the time in No Limit
Texas Hold’em it comes down to a coin flip or a race.
Most players are used to having a pocket pair going up against
two overcards (ie QQ vs AK being the classic battle). Sometimes
you get a situation where you will get AJ vs KQ - a virtual
coin flip that you really want to avoid if possible but you
will notice that online poker players will jump into a coin
flip without any fear.
What you are really looking
for is a situation where you can put your money at risk when
you are a 4 – 1 favorite or better. For example KK vs
QQ or KK vs KQ even better. You are always trying to get into
a pot with a huge statistical advantage so as to move along
in the tournament. As I have stated already the good players
don’t want to move all in pre-flop early in the tournament
unless they have AA or KK while the inexperienced players
are pounding all in out of position with TT or JJ or AQ regularly.
Something to watch when you
are taking notes on some of your competitors. Post flop you
are looking for top pair with an Ace kicker or top pair with
the nut flush draw or an open ended nut flush or nut straight
draw with the top pair. These situations are very good to
play from and usually you will do well if you catch a few
good flops in your tournament. Of course you always have to
be conscious of your opponents and know that if they are calling
you they must have something. The last thing you want to do
is to bet top pair into a player with more chips (and in position)
who then raises you all in holding two pair or a set. That
is usually what gets players into trouble and busted out of
tournaments.
You will note that the good
players usually are busted out by river draws against them
while the bad players are busted out when they call an all
in and are way behind in a hand. Play smart and make sure
you are the player who has the best of it when you put your
chips in play.
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