Using The Odds.

[thechern]

Ive recently started to focus alot on calculating odds post flop and post turn. In the past I have gotten really excited when i hit a middle pair or a straight draw and bet bigonly to see the turn be a useless card and end up folding. I saw a trick to estimate your odds on tv. Post flop you take your outs and multiply by 4 to get a percent of making your hand. Post turn you do the same but multiply by 2. I was recently playing 5/10c pot limit holdem at pacific poker when I was dealt 8 4 off suit in the big blind. Action folded around to the SB who limped in and I checked.

The flop came 7 K 9.

now cchicken the other player always checked when he didnt hit, first to act he checked it. It came to me and I checked. I knew I had not bad odds with outs of, 3 8's, 3 4's, 3 5's, 6's, 10's. 15x4= about 60% chance of making a hand.

The Turn Came 6.

cchicken led off with a minimum bet of 10c. Heres where the odds helped me in the hand. I had 8 4 and on the board there were 7 6 9 (plus a king which was no help to me.) this left me with an openended straight draw. my outs now were, 3 8's 3 4's 3 5's 3 10's which was 24% of making a good hand. A 1-4 chance for 10c was worth it in my mind and I called with a good read of him with a low pair or a bluff.

The River Came 10.

I hit my straight 6 to 10 and he led of with a 10c bet and I came over the top with 20c he took 6 seconds and mucked it, I won a 60c pot gained information on him and didnt reveal my cards a pretty good play in my mind. What do you guys think?

 

[thechern]

anybody?

 

[Beriac]

Not sure if I am reading this right. Forgive me if I am wrong.

Your hand: 84o
Flop: K97
Turn: 6
River: T

You say after the flop you had 15 outs, them being "3 8's, 3 4's, 3 5's, 6's, 10's". I'm not sure I understand why some of these are outs after the flop...

As I understand it, an "out" is something that gives you a hand, and a likely winner at that. I believe you had no outs here, not even an 8, simply because your opponent could easily still beat you if you drew an 8.

After the turn, though, you were helped quite a bit, and I believe you had 8 outs: 4x5 + 4x10. Again, I don't believe that 4 or 8 are really outs cause all they give you are low/middle pair. An out, in theory, leads to the winning hand.

As far as usage of pot odds, multiplying by 4 gives you the odds of drawing out on either the turn or river, but does not take into account that you may have to pay again to get to the river so be careful when using this on the flop. On the turn, multiplying by 2 gives a rough estimate of how likely you are to hit your hand. Then you compare that to the odds presented by the bet and decide.

In this case, on the flop you didn't need pot odds since he checked.

On the turn: If I read correctly, there was 20c in the pot from pre-flop then his minimum bet post-turn. That's 30c. To call you had to get better than 3:1 (30c for 10c) to call. By my calc, you were getting 8 outs or 16% to win, which is 6:1. To me, that's a fold.

If you put him on squat, that's one thing and you can call based on that (but how many hands can you really beat here?), but to draw to the straight is wrong. To draw to the straight plus assuming your 8 and 4 are good (I don't... but I'm not reading the guy), you're right on the border and a call is okay but not super profitable.

But I don't think the 8 is an out, certainly not the 4...

Does that help at all? Any other questions?