Help! Pot Odds and Winning Hands

sard1010

Hey everyone, forgive me if this is not the right section of the forum for this post, but it is a "analyze my hand" sort of thing so I should be good. New to the forum and I was inspired to join mostly to post about this hand that I personally deem fairly interesting. See what you guys think, any insight is appreciated! :)

Forgive us for being noobs, but I'm heads up in my basement against my younger brother on our makeshift poker table (now with felt, yay!), and we both start with 30 chips each, all of the same denomination, and in case you're wondering we weren't playing for money. Blinds at 1 chip / 2 chips, we start the game. Now that that's out the way here's the situation I'm faced with towards the middle of the match:

I don't know all of the proper ways to represent cards and suits online, but I'm holding Ace-Jack of diamonds. We're on fourth street and he bets 4 chips into a pot of 14 chips. My situation is as follows:

I need a diamond on the river to make a flush, or a Ten to make a straight, or of course an Ace or a Jack to make a pair. So therefore at that point I was just holding Ace-high. I'm not sure how significant this is, but I make the read and I'm fairly sure that if any one of those possibilities comes to fruition I would win the hand. I was able to then deduce that about half of the deck would be able to win me this hand should I call.

What I'd really like to learn about here is pot odds and all of that wonderful stuff that poker books and poker pros tell you that you need to know to be a winning player. I'm quite certain that in this situation I was getting more than a great price to try to claim that pot from a mathematics perspective, as (if I may take a stab at this) I'm getting 3 to 1 odds for a play that is 1 to 1, if I understand this correctly. If I'm wrong, help me out. :)

Anyways, I actually decide to raise him another 4 chips, betting out 8. He calls. We see the river card and it's not one of my outs. I lost to a medium pocket pair (8's I believe).

This might have been an easier example of getting the "right odds" to make a call, but if you're catching my drift and I hope that you are, any help is greatly appreciated!

I hope you found the situation kind of interesting, I certainly did. I chewed on it for a while even when it was happening.

pkrfce9

There are a whole lot of details missing. Some where on this site there is a post about how to describe a hand so wet have all the details for analysis.

It sounds like you may have had up to 20 outs to win the hand. You may have also had some fold equity. So jamming might have been a better play. But the devil is in the details...

pkrfce9

Or are you playing limit? In that case nevermind...

moose

If you have 2 diamonds in your hand and two on the board, you have 9 remaining diamonds to make your flush.

3 jacks
3 aces
3 tens (one is a diamond already counted)

18 outs to win.

Percentage to win can roughly be estimated by multiplying your outs by the number of cards to come x2. On the flop there are two cards to come, so 18x4, 72%, on the river only one card is left to come, 18x2 = 36%

On the turn you have to put 4 chips into the pot to win 18, 4/18 = 22.2%. Since the % of chips you need to add to the pot is less than your % of chance you have to win, you are getting the correct odds to call.

sard1010

pkrfce9;397417 wroteThere are a whole lot of details missing. Some where on this site there is a post about how to describe a hand so wet have all the details for analysis.

I knew that I left out some details, I just assumed that I gave a sufficient amount of detail and didn't know that there was an etiquette to posting hands for analysis. My bad.

EDIT: Btw, what sort of necessary details are missing?

pkrfce9;397418 wroteOr are you playing limit? In that case nevermind...

We were playing No-Limit.

moose;397429 wroteIf you have 2 diamonds in your hand and two on the board, you have 9 remaining diamonds to make your flush.

3 jacks
3 aces
3 tens (one is a diamond already counted)

18 outs to win.

Percentage to win can roughly be estimated by multiplying your outs by the number of cards to come x2. On the flop there are two cards to come, so 18x4, 72%, on the river only one card is left to come, 18x2 = 36%

On the turn you have to put 4 chips into the pot to win 18, 4/18 = 22.2%. Since the % of chips you need to add to the pot is less than your % of chance you have to win, you are getting the correct odds to call.

Thanks moose, that's pretty much what I was looking for, thanks for the input. I just find it interesting that apparently "winning" poker players make these sort of "pot odds" assessments with most or every decision or big decision they have and base their play on these odds, but for a player like me I would take way too long with each decision if I had to do this. I guess they're all good at math and they've done it so many times that it's second nature...

moose

Outsx2xcards to come. Ez game.

pkrfce9

In time, this will become second nature to you if you are serious about the game.

Do a search on fold equity. That will become important to you too.

Then you'll need to understand how to read your opponent.

sard1010

moose;397520 wroteOutsx2xcards to come. Ez game.

Any chance that you'd like to hash that formula out for me a bit? I only vaguely understand what you're getting at but it seems like a simple yet important point that you're trying to make.

pkrfce9;397527 wroteIn time, this will become second nature to you if you are serious about the game.

Do a search on fold equity. That will become important to you too.

Then you'll need to understand how to read your opponent.

Ya, I'll attempt to think about it as I make decisions next time I'm at the table. At least being aware of these concepts should, like you said, allow me to use them properly and effectively in time.

I wiki'd fold equity thinking it would have something to do with knowing when to fold in general, it seemed to focus on the situation of being short-stacked, leading me to think that in a way every short-stacked poker player in some form or another already thinks in terms of fold equity.

In terms of reading, I feel like I have a bit of a knack for it. But I don't like talking to my opponents or staring them down, I prefer to just feel out the situation and rely on instinct.

moose

Huh?

eg you flop a gutshot. 4 outs to win.

a) Your opponent bets 10% of the pot on the flop. 4 outs * 2 * 1 card = 8% to win on the turn. You aren't getting the right price to call, just on the math.

4 outs * 2 * 2 cards to come. 16% to win by river.

b) Your opponent shoves all in on the flop but all he has is $15 into a $85 pot. You need to call $15 to win $100, now the math says you should call to hit your gutshot.