TimmyX;161676 wroteI got this explanation of pot odds. It's from
How To Work Out and Use Pot Odds in Poker
and they have four hearts drawing for a flush;
"
1] Calculating The ‘Card Odds'
First of all we need to find out how likely we are to catch another heart on the turn. This can be done in many ways, but the most popular way is to find the ratio of cards in the deck that we don’t want against cards that we do want.
- There are 5 cards in this hand that we know, our 2 holecards and the 3 cards on the flop.
- This leaves us with 47 cards in the deck that we do not know.
- Out of those 47 there are 9 cards that will make our flush and 38 that will not.
- If we put this into a ratio it gives us 38:9, or roughly 4:1.
2] Compare With Pot Odds Now we know that the odds of hitting a heart on the next card are 4:1. This means for every 4 times we don’t catch a heart, 1 time we will. Next we have to calculate the same ratio of odds using the amount that is in the pot and the bet we are facing.
- Our opponent has bet $20 into an $80 pot making it $100.
- This means we have to call $20 to stand a chance of winning $100.
- This makes our odds $100:$20 which works out to equal 5:1 pot odds.
So...
Card Odds: 4:1 Pot Odds: 5:1 This means that we should
call as the odds we are getting from the pot are bigger than the odds that we will hit our flush on the next card. In the long run we will be winning more money than we are losing."
This is wrong because, as I just showed, you will not win more money than you lose, unless in this case you were up against less than four opponents. You will lose money whether you call or fold if there are over four opponents and your hand odds are 4:1. Both choices have a negative expectation, you just have to choose the one with lowest negative expectation. See, I told you the books were wrong and people just mocked me. What does that say about them?
Did you read my post?
POT ODDS ARE FOR YOUR ONE SITUATION ONLY
Yes, with pot odds on your side and going by pot odds all the time, you will either break even or lose, or get lucky and win.
The problem is, if everyone used pot odds and they were always used, everyone would just be transferring money from one person to the other.
Here is what we have though.
1) People who don't use pot odds. (rely on luck and probably lose a lot of money)
2) People who use them all the time and rely on nothing but pot odds. (breaks even or makes a bit of money)
3) People who use them to make decisions about their play, but sometimes don't rely on them based on tells and their opponents. (the most profitable if used correctly)
So, as I said before, MAKING MONEY ISN'T BASED ON WHETHER OR NOT YOUR POT ODDS ARE CORRECT!!!!!
POT ODDS HELPS YOU DECIDE IF IT MAKES SENSE TO CALL!! YOU CAN EXPECT TO MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU HIT!!!! WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE REAL WORLD, NOT A PURE MATHEMATICAL GAME!!!
Do you understand?
Pot odds gives you the chance to not lose too much money calling bets.
Factor this in.
If you decide you have 3 outs and maybe the best hand on the board already, and there are 2 other hands that can beat yours on the board, but you decide your pots odds make sense, cause you only have to call a raise that is 5% of the pot (someone is slow playing you with the nuts, or they have a hand that needs to hit both the river and the turn), will you fold because your chances of winning are technically low because you have a whole bunch of people in the pot?
No, you may even want to bet way more, way out of the mathematical thought in order to get most people out of the pot so you can hopefully win. Especially if you have something like A's after the flop, and only the two other A's and pairing up your other card will increase your hand strength. You want to push out possible draws ASAP.
In other words, you can't use just math to win. You have to play the game and you have to include money put in before and after your pot odds calculations. Sure, if you take it for its pure mathematical situation, you're right, you would end up losing. You still neglect to include how much you will end up winning if you made your hand.
Playing based on how strong or weak your hand is based on what else could be made will end up killing you in the end. You have to look at the bigger picture. How strong is your hand compared to everyone elses (tells) and how strong can your hand be (outs).
For example, in ring games I play a lot looser (not too lose) than i do at the beginning of a tournament. Mathematically they should be the same, shouldn't they? No.
Poker has a lot of math that can help you make good decisions, but there are a lot of poker players out there that are pros that don't use pot odds. They go by feel and experience.
I'll say this as an end note.
POT ODDS ARE THERE TO MAKE SURE YOU MAKE THE BEST DECISIONS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU NEED TO MAKE A DECISION. THEY ARE PROVEN MATHEMATICS THAT MAKE SENSE.
Got it?
I think this is a closed topic. This will be my final post here. If you want to know more about it, read this again and understand that you can't replay fully on math and the math you are talking about is just a portion of a much larger picture.
There, that's the best way to explain it.
You are focusing on the specific math too much. Pot odds are just a mathematical system that is imbeded into a much larger formula that would involve human decision making and emotion. Poker is not an exact science, but making the odds work in your favour proves to be profitable in the long run.
