So I just finished reading Winning Low Limit Hold 'em by Lee Jones. While I enjoyed the book, in hindsight, most of it felt like, "in x situation, do y", for almost everything. Since wrapping that up, I started going through TTOP and SSHE and realize that I need to focus on getting a better grip on calculating pot odds, outs, and implied odds... but doing it all on the fly.

My question is this: How are the top players (or all of you veterans) actually doing this all in practice, live? For instance, Sklansky recommends memorizing the break even odds for 1-8 outs on the turn. I plan on doing this, and I guess once I have that memorized, it will truly be one less thing to think about, which I imagine would help a lot.

I've been studying poker and playing micro limits online for about the last 6 weeks and will be going to vegas soon. This is more just about the experience as its my second time actually sitting down at a real card room in a casino; dont really care if i lose a bit of money, just want to practice and get some experience under my belt with this new hobby.

I rarely fold hands that have outs making the need to do math moot.

Most situations will be similar, once you figure out what's correct you don't need to do the math ever. For example, you flop a flush draw in multiway raised pot, you don't need to calculate odds, pot odds or anything you jsut need to try and make a flush

After you play enough you'll do this in enevry spot and rarly if ever have to calc odds or pot odds on the fly

Yup. The only times I have to do on the fly pot odds calculations now is when I'm bluffing the turn with a gutshot that has strong pair outs and my opponent raises me. Sometimes this diminishes my pair outs to the point that I'm just hanging on to those four gutshot outs. Then I recount the pot in my head and I'm usually not getting the right price to call for just a gutshot. Then I end up folding. However, this situation comes up rarely when playing live low limit holdem because I don't bluff with gutshots as a general rule vs bad low limit players. There's usually just not enough equity backing up that bluff so I prefer to check and hope to get a freebie.

This is a great attitude to have.

Welcome to the forum.

Worrying too much about odds tends to make beginning players passive. Just be generally aware of the concept. Being properly tight and aggressive preflop is a far more important thing to worry about than exact drawing odds.

If you want to calculate postflop, just use the vague idea that if (number of outs) * (expected final pot size in bets) > 46 then you have odds to call one bet. For multiple bets (raise, 3 bet, etc) divide the pot size by that number of bets. Use small bets on the flop, big bets on the turn.

This doesn't need to be at all precise, as guessing at effective outs and estimating pot size has enough natural error built in to make exact calculations sort of silly. If you feel like you need some guidance as to odds, this is about as complex as you want to make it while at the table. You can be more precise later.

I'm behind, I raise. I'm ahead, I raise. Might be the opposite.

I always use the rule of four and the rule of two when counting outs. Like Jones says you will flop a four flush 7.5% of the time. And you will make that flush 35.9% before the river. So normally you should never be folding before the river. You have 9 outs on the flop 9 x 4 = 36% equity, and the same 9 outs on the turn 9 x 2 = 18% equity. So to break even on a flop call there is at least 2 BB in the pot. To break even on a turn call there is 4 BB in the pot. But if your opponent is aggressive and there is only 3 BB in the pot on the turn, you should still call because of implied odds. You can gain an extra two bets on the river by check-raising. So your 1 BB invested on the turn gains you 2 extra bets on the river, in effect you gain 5 BB even though you did not have the correct expressed odds to call the turn.

There are a lot of different things to think about during a poker hand. It would take more time than I'm willing to give to outline them all here.

Generally speaking, my thought process starts with putting my opponent(s) on a range of hands and then trying to narrow that range with every new piece of information I receive.

Here's a generic example (my basic thought process will be in parentheses),

A player limps in EP. (I know this player raises his strong hands, so his limp indicates he's got the weaker part of his range)

A solid TAG limps along from HJ (he raises the top 20% of hands in this spot and limps along with the next 15% of hands, so I have a pretty good idea what his range looks like)

I have AK on BTN and raise for value. The blinds magically fold. 3 ways to the flop. Pot has 7.5SB before the rake.

44❤️5❤️
They both check to me, I bet
(I have the best hand often enough to bet for value - my equity is likely 33%+),
EP player raises, TAG folds.
(I know EP doesn't have many 4s his range because he likes to slowplay really strong hands and will take the x/c x/r line with trip 4s. He likes to x/r all flush draws, so he can have a lot of those. He x/r'es OESD too, so he can have 67s, but not 67o because he'd fold that pre. He'll also raise vulnerable made hands like 5x and over pairs that didn't raise pre flop like 66 and 77. Because I've got a read on this guy, I'm able to narrow his range a decent amount.)

T (5.75BB)
EP bets, I call
(His bet means that he doesn't have a FD or SD because I know he has the bad habit of checking missed draws on the turn after x/r'ing them on the flop. Now I can narrow his range to 5x and 66, 77. I have 6 clean outs vs those hands. I need 6.3:1 to draw to my outs and am getting 6.75:1, so I can call profitability.)

A❤️
EP checks, I bet
(I bet for value because I've narrowed his range with the information I've received such that his most likely hands are ones I can beat. Easy value bet)
He calls and MHIG.

This is an over simplification of what my thought process is during a hand, but you get the basic idea.