Donk odds question

DemocAnarchis

I'm trying to improve my game, and will freely admit my odds calculations are, well, ****e. There is a particular recurring situation I feel i'm playing badly.

Say the board is Qc 2c 6d, and we hold Ac 9c. Cash game, blinds at say 1/2, we are in the big blind, sb complete, button limps, sb and us to the pot. (Note, keeping pf play simple for the sake of the Q, wouldnt nessecary play this hand like that). Pot is 8, button bets 4, sb calls. This is where I get a bit messed up. We have 3xAs 3x9s and 9x clubs, so 15 outs, or 12 if our 9 isnt good. So we have about 1 in 4 chance of hitting our out on the turn. The pot is now 16, and 4 to us to call, so we are getting the correct odds to call. But my question is, do you have to factor in expected bets on the turn? As in, when you know you are behind, but that your outs will be good, do we still call, when we will have to fold on the turn if we dont hit one? Do we calculate odds to hit by the turn, or the river?

If any of ye can make sense of this blathering, it would be much appreciated.

Mellor

i think i can make sense of it,
you calculate odds of hitting on the turn.
you have 4/1 pot odds, and going with 12 outs (i'd never count the nine) your actually odds are 3/1 to hit on the turn, so its a call

depend on the turn card you re-evaluate based on the turn action.

You only ever calculate odds based on two cards if action is over, ie the only other player all-in on the flop.

Rickyroma

Download pokerstove (free) or go to cardplayer and use their odds calculator. Run some sample hands thru to get a feel for odds on str8 and flush draws.


One quick and rough way to estimate your chances when actually playing is to count your outs and multiply by 4 on the flop or 2 on the river and then minus 1.

So in the example given your odds of hitting a flush are -

9 x 4 = 36 - 1 = 35%.

This is a rough percentage. Your odds of winning the pot are sometimes slightly higher as you can also hit runner runner with no flush.

Hitman Actual

To try and explain things simply, there are two things to look at: your immediate odds and your implied odds. The immediate odds are the exact odds you're getting at any point in the hand. So in this case, the price you're getting to make the call is $16/4 (4/1), and your odds of hitting your 'winning' flush are 4/1, so hitting and winning the pot (as it stands) on the turn is exactly break-even. [Assume for simplicity that you know that if you hit your flush, you are winning]

But because there is more money and more streets to play out, the implied odds need to be taken into consideration. Implied odds are basically the money you stand to win (or lose!**) on later betting/streets by making a call on earlier streets. As an example, say your opponent in the flush hand has $50 behind, and will always stack off if you hit your flush, then your call of $4 has a much greater expectation: 4 times in 5 you lose your 4$ (if you have to fold), but the other time you win $66, for a profit of €50 on average.

But this also means that your immediate odds don't have to be 'correct' to make some calls. In your example, if the bet was $5 instead of 4 (giving you 3.2/1 to call, less than youir chance of making the flush on the turn), you can still make the call because your call has 'implied odds value', i.e. you get paid off loads when you hit.

In practice, you'll be thinking in terms of both immediate and implied odds. If you're getting the correct immediate odds, you should be making the call. And when you're not, try to estimate how much you stand to win when you hit your hand, or by knocking your opponent off the pot even when you don't hit your hand (your 'bluff outs', essentially). That's your implied odds.

If you read the posts by the good players here, a common theme is getting involved with marginal hands (preflop) against bad players. A big part of this is the implied odds of getting paid off big when you hit (because they donk off their stack), or because they can outplay them on later streets, making marginal earlier calls profitable in the long run.

**The last thing to remember is that you can have reverse implied odd too. This covers the scenario when the money you stand to win on later streets doesn't cover your 'investment' on earlier streets. Against someone who doesn't pay you off enough, you may have reverse implied odds. Also, sometimes you hit your hand but your opponent hits a better hand (or already has you beaten), and you still lose. Implied/reverse implied odds are very opponent/situational dependant.

Yikes, extremely long-winded, sorry! And that's a very basic explanation, as there are always loads of variables to consider.

dvdfan

lenny_leonard wrote:

So in this case, the price you're getting to make the call is $16/4 (4/1), and your odds of hitting your 'winning' flush are 4/1, so hitting and winning the pot (as it stands) on the turn is exactly break-even.

Nice explanation Lenny. Just to point out he has an Ace here aswell so his odds of hitting are 3/1, well thats if your sure your Ace is good.

Just on that topic do you give any weight to the fact someone cbets alot, say your only getting 2/1 on the call and you have the above hand against 1 villain on the above board, the villain has a high cbet % so we can assume we might still have the best hand as in A high and we might be able to take him off the hand if we flat call and he checks to us on a blank turn.

So assuming he cbets 2/3 of the time on a missed flop and he will obviously miss the flop 2 out of 3 times then how can we calculate this to see if we have implied odds to call or should we even consider this?