Calling when pot odds are not good
We'll continue the example of our two previous articles on pot odds. You're on the flop, there are $80 in the pot and your opponent bets $10.
Your winning odds are 9 to 1, but this assumes that you get to see both the turn and the river. Now let's say that you call $10 on the flop and don't make your winning hand on the turn.
With a new card your winning odds usually change, say that they are now 6 to 1. If the opponent fires out a pot bet of $100, your pot odds are 2 to 1.
With winning odds of 6 to 1, the pot odds are not good enough to motivate a call. If you repeat this situation ten times, you'll lose $100 six times and win $200 once, losing a total of $400, or $40 each time on average.
But the last word is yet to be spoken: Your opponent still has about $1400 in his stack and if you make your winning hand, maybe you can win them all. This is called implied odds.
What if you win his entire stack
Sometimes it's okay to make a call even if the pot is too small to give you the correct (direct) pot odds.
Say for example that a player raises in early position and you call with 76. The flop comes A84. You feel certain that you can only win if you hit a 5. There are four fives left unseen in the deck, among a total of 47 unseen cards.
Your odds of making the straight on the next card are approximately 11:1.
Now let's say that the opponent bets out 70% of the pot. The pot odds are around 2.5:1, which is too low for your call to be correct. If you consider the situation in isolation, you must fold.
But now the thing is, if you were to hit that five, your opponent would have a very hard time folding hands like AA or AK when you bet into him, or raise his bet.
It's simply very hard to believe that you would take such a crappy hand all the way to the river.
Making a bad call correct
Implied pot odds may make an apparently incorrect call correct - if your opponent has money left behind and you think you can win some of them by hitting your hand.
But before you start giving away value by making a lot of bad calls, make sure that you actually have the implied odds to make up for it! Is the opponent really prepared to put more money in the pot?!
Two things are important to create good implied odds:
- The opponent must have a strong hand that he'll back up with his chips. Has he shown strength in the hand? A pre flop raiser in early position probably gives you better implied odds than a player who just limped in late position.
- Your own hand must have a deceptive quality. If you flop a flush draw and then make the flush on a later street, you'll often find it hard to attract any big bets. The flush is so obvious. But if you make an inside straight draw or even a low two pair, your strength is hard to read.
Enter on stage the psychology of poker
It's interesting to note that, contrary to pot odds, implied odds can never be calculated with certainty. They depend on your opponent's strategy and psychology.
What are the chances that she will call a bet if you make your hand? This cannot be calculated, just guessed. Or estimated. Here's where your psychological understanding comes into the equation.
And here lies the beauty of poker: It cannot be mathematically solved. You'll always have to go with your best guess.
Or estimate.
/Charlie River
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