A Thinking Man’s Game - Pot Odds
By the PokerStrategyKing

Every week, I present you readers with insights and strategies and alternative ways of thinking when you play poker. My advice basically consists of feel and not a whole lot on mathematics. Lately, however, I have spent more and more time focusing on the math and analytical parts of the game. So every now and again, I will focus on this side of poker. The well-rounded and successful player knows all of these principles almost without thinking twice about them. The more poker you play and the better players you go up against, you’ll see this is the truth. There is a lot to be said about statistics and probabilities which should at least enter your mind before you decide to check, raise or call. Today, I'm going to try to give some specific examples of how pot odds affect your decisions when you are playing a drawing hand (differences of opinion are welcomed and encouraged)

For this example we'll use a $10/20 Limit Hold em game.

The Small Blind posts $5 and the Big blind posts $10. The blinds are called by early and middle position players. In late position you decide to call with A9 suited (2 hearts). The Small Blind folds and the Big Blind checks leaving $45 in the Pot.

The flop comes Qh – Js-2h giving you now the nut flush draw. A pretty decent flop for you. After the flop, the Big Blind checks, the early position player bets $10 and is called by the middle position player. The Pot now has $65 in it so the odds you are getting for your $10 call are 6.5 to 1. As I mentioned in a previous article, the probability of you making your flush is slightly better than 3 to 1. This tells you that the pot odds are sufficient for you to call. If the payout odds are larger than the probability of you making your hand, it makes sense to call. So you call $10 and the Big Blind folds. There is now $75 in the Pot.

The turn card is the 10 of clubs. At this point, once that 10 hits, the early player bets $20 and the middle position player raises $40 and there is now $135 in the Pot.

Questions to answer:
1. What do you do?
2. Do you have sufficient Pot odds to call the Raise?
3. Could you have anticipated this happening before the Turn card and was there anything you could have done about it then?

Question 1. In this case, you should probably fold. It is unlikely that middle player has the best hand at this point because he would have raised sooner. Most likely is that early player has made his straight and could re-raise the middle position players raise meaning it will end up costing you a minimum of $60 and possibly $80 to see the river card. Sure, you’re flush can trump the raises if it hits, but if not, you just wasted over $100 in an attempt to take down which was at the time a pot less than $200.

Question 2. With one card to come you need odds of 37 to 9 to call the raise. The pot has $135 in it therefore the odds are not sufficient for you to call a $40 raise.

Question 3. You could have raised on the flop. The pot odds you would have been getting to raise were 6.5 to 2 and since you should hit your flush about 1 out of every 3 times you had sufficient pot odds to raise. This could have accomplished 1 of 2 things. Once the turn card hit if you still missed your flush there is a possibility that both players might check to you because you showed strength on the flop. Then you could have also checked and seen the river card for free.

If your raise on the turn didn't scare the other 2 players off and they still bet and raised to you on the turn this time the Pot odds are going to be a little different because of your raise on the flop. There will now be $185 in the pot when it is $40 for you to call the raise and $185 to $40 is better than 37 to 9 therefore your raise on the flop gave you sufficient pot odds to call the raise on the turn.

Until next time, may the chips fall your way.

(For more poker strategy and tips, please visit the PokerStrategyKing’s website at www.pokerstrategyking.com)