Yes newb question I sure. Sorry for the bad question but I am looking for some help. I consider myself a pretty smart guy but I am struggling with pot odds for some reason. When I played recreational I never gave it 2 thoughts since I played so little. Now that I have been playing 20+ hours a week I should probably be better versed in pot odds. Or should I be? Are they really that important?

Anyways can someone tell me what my pot odds were on this hand and maybe explain them like you are talking to an infant. Not looking for critiques on the hand just purely pot odds.

This is a 1/3 NLH

Hero KJ diamonds

Heads up on flop with 39 in pot.

Flop Ad Qs 4c

Hero checks, other player bets $40
(If reads are important this player definitely has an A)

Based purely on pot odds, is this a call?

At first I was counting just a 10 for 4 outs, but do I count all the diamonds as well or no since I would need runner runner.

Thanks for any help with this situation.

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It's a clear fold. You need to pay 40 to win 120 that's 33% of the pot. You need to have at least 33% equity to win the hand to break even. With 4 outs you are around 8%, don't chase gutshots for pot sized bets.

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Not even close to correct odds. Your diamonds are not outs, but just "outs to outs." You have 9 outs to having 8 outs on the river. That means that on the turn you have an 18 percent chance of getting to where you'd have a 16% chance of hitting a flush on the river. Even if he would always check turn (very doubtful) to get your chance of hitting a flush you multiply .18x.16 and discover that your back door flush draw offers you only 2.88% additional equity.

Even if V never bets again, so you get two shots at your gutshot and a free chance at runner-runner flush, you only have 22% equity against an ace that doesn't block any of your draws, and you are being asked to pay 33% of the pot. Fold. Also, V is likely to bet turn, making this situation even worse. Turbo fold.

I'm gonna correct one thing here. Going into the turn, you're about 16% to hit your Ten by the river, and your BDFD adds a percentage point or so, but that doesn't change the truth of this statement:
Quick rules on pot odds: on the flop, take the number of outs you have, and multiply them by 4 to find your rough percentage of hitting by the river. If you've seen the turn, multiply your outs by 2. If the percentage of the money you have to call into the total pot (here 40/120=33%) is greater than your chance you'll hit, then mathematically you should fold.
That, of course, doesn't take into account things like hitting and still being second best, or the possible implied odds of making your hand and stacking V, or a thousand other possible scenarios, most of which don't work in your favor, but that's the simple math on pot odds.
Oh, and to answer your other question, YES. They're important to know. But there are a thousand threads on this and many people who have said it better than I can.

Pot odds compare the percentage your bet contributes to the total pot to the percentage of time your hand will hit.

There is roughly $40 in the pot. Your opponent bets $40, so now there is $80 in the pot. If you called $40, your amount would make up 33% of the total pot of $120.

You (probably) have 4 outs to win. That gives you about 8% chance to hit by the river. Runner runner diamond adds 2% so you have roughly 10% chance by the river.

33% is greater than 10% so you should probably fold. Ga ga goo goo

The real question is how large the pot needed to be for a call, and then if that amount could be won after a T turn.

OP, to answer your question, no, pot odds aren't that important as long as you have a general feel for situations. For example facing a PSB with a gutshot is generally a fold.

If you want to get quick with pot odds anyway, think in terms of units of the pot, not dollars.

First, if you ended up HU OOP to the raiser, you are almost always making a mistake preflop; it is highly unlikely this call could ever be profitable.

Was this an all-in bet, or does Villain have money behind?

I just skimmed the other responses, but I come from a Limit background where often I just deal with a memorized odds chart. We have a 4 outer to the gutshot, and a 4 outer we need 10.5:1 odds to hit on the next street. We're currently getting 2:1 odds, which means we need to make up 8.5 bets of $40 = $340 just to breakeven in order to chase to the turn, so he'd better have a lotta money behind and be a payoff wizard with TP even in position for us to chase (i.e. easy fold).

If he's all in, we can estimate about 1 out to the backdoor runner runner flush draw, which gives us a 5 outer, which is about 8.5:1 odds to chase to one street, and about half of that to chase over two streets, so we need about 4.25:1 to breakeven, and we're only getting 2:1.

So trivial fold in all cases.

Ggoodluck!G

lol wat

Would be the truth for the vast majority of players.

For someone who is asking questions regarding pot odds / this hand postflop, it's not even remotely close. Calling a raise HU OOP will never be remotely EV, apart from the possible exceptions of AA/KK.

Gdisagree?G

I did indeed fold the hand and it really wasn't even a second thought. I was just using this hand as an example to figure pot odds. So maybe I am getting it now.
Does the below make sense and am I thinking about it right.
With a 4 outer I am approx 8% to win so my bet has to be less than 8% of the total pot. So for a $40 call the pot would have to be more than $320 for it to be a correct call.

If that is all correct, say I make the bad $40 call. Now there is $120 in the pot. Say another diamond comes on the turn. Now I have 12 outs for a win. I am now a 28% favorite so for the correct call On the flop my bet would have to be less than 28% of his bet plus pot. If he were to bet 80 on turn. My call of 80 would be 28% and a call at that point?

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Yes if I originally thought this was a call I would indeed be one of those players. I knew it was a fold, I am just trying to get into figuring out why it was a good fold.

Almost.

You are approx 8% to hit your 4-outer on the next street.

If you have a flush draw, that's a 9-outer. Adding the 4 outs to the straight doesn't work, as one of those outs is the Td, which was already counted as a flush out. So you have 13 outs, or about a 26% chance of hitting.

This is terrible logic. Vast majority of players are losing players, but calling with KJs OOP is not the reason they are losing players.


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Alright so today I tried to use the pot odds thinking on a hand. Can someone tell me if I did it right.

I am going to pick it up on the Flop.

$120 in the pot. UTG (very large stack, has been playing rather tight raised to $30 pre flop. He absolutely has a JJ, QQ, maybe KK. He does not have AA because his prior 2 AA he raised to $50 pre which were his only 2 raises that large. He could have KK because I have not seen him play KK. My strong gut is JJ or QQ)

Hero has A T clubs
Flop comes 4c 7c Jd
UTG bets $75, fold, fold

So now I am figuring that he either has a set or over pair.
My outs are 9 clubs and 3 Aces for 25.5% on the turn
My call is $75 to make a $270 pot for 27.8%

27.8 > 25.5 so it should be a fold.

However I call.

Turn is (4c 7c Jd) Kh

utg goes all in. I have $165 behind.
Now I have 9 clubs, 3 Aces, 4 Queens. Some of those outs are possible full house possibilities so I am not sure how to determine how many I need to remove so I am figuring he has QQ, JJ, or maybe KK. So I need to either remove 1 or 2 outs. I went with 2 outs so I have 14 outs for 30.4%

The bet of $165 means I need to put $165 into a $600 pot for 27.5% for an easy call. I tanked for about 3 minutes. I knew I was going to call but I wanted to figure it out. When I thew my cards down people were like WTF, that was an easy call.

I ended up missing my draws and he had QQ so my read was right.

So if we go by pot odds and I did this all correctly I should have been folding on the flop bet? I have a hard time folding a hand like that but maybe that is a leak in my game?

One of the biggest leaks typical losing players have is calling raises HU OOP. If they simply removed this play from their playbook it would do them a world of good to their winrate.

I'm just a mediocre player myself but even I know that I wouldn't be profitable calling raises HU OOP with 98% of hands. Experts could *perhaps* (???) slide it into the profitable territory. Those asking about fundamentals on pot odds or losing players in general, it's not even remotely close.

Gwe'llhavetoagreetodisagreeonthisoneG

You still fail at logic.

"Typical leak of losing players is calling too many raises OOP" does not equal "playing a top 10% hand OOP is -EV."

It's not a matter of disagreement. You are wrong, and you don't even comprehend the magnitude of your wrongness.

You don't get to choose to be IP all the time. The blinds are there for a reason and everyone has to post them in turn. You don't need to be an "expert" to do better than -100bb/100 hands with a lot of hands, which is the winrate of folding your bb every time.

Obv everything is situational but you are folding KJs to a single raise?

I can't insta-muck KJs HU OOP to a raise fast enough preflop. I'm not sure what else to say, it's not even close, imo.

We're often dominated.

When we both whiff (including times when we whiff with the best hand), it's highly likely he wins the pot far more than us thanks to his position and initiative.

And thanks to being OOP it makes getting paid off when we're best postflop much more difficult, plus pot control more difficult, plus easier for him to put us in difficult spots, etc.

Again, if you're an expert player who has a solid grasp on your opponent, feel free to see a flop (although I think there are *some* arguments that expert players are simply the ones that don't see a flop here). For mediocre- players like myself, folding is far and away the best play, and it's not close. Encouraging players who know nothing of fundamentals like pot odds that folding preflop would be lol bad is flat out horrible advice.

Gcouldn'tdisagreemorewiththeabovecomments,imoG

I know you embrace your nittiness but my suggestion would be to do some work to improve rather than simply dismiss a spot as "too hard". I can't imagine mucking this to a single raise HU except to players as nitty as you profess to be (and even then I don't think I'm actually folding).

I'd spend some time thinking about what SABR is saying and recognize that playing one way for all this time might be coloring your approach and that some of the more difficult games you have mentioned may not, in fact, be that difficult but you just haven't adjusted/adapted well which ultimately is the crux of the whole game.

(Steps down from the soap box)

Do you think OP should be folding?

Do you think the majority of players who play at this level (and lose) should be folding?

Do you think OP / majority of players at this level would be making a mistake of fairly great magnitude by folding?

ETA: If the argument is that an expert player could make this a +EV play, ok, that's fine. Saying that not playing a hand OOP HU to the raiser is like some horrendous mistake that is unrecoverable from is pretty meh.

GcluelessmediocrenoobG

All this talk of what to do preflop and no mention of stack sizes or open size.

It's pretty marginal vs. a 7x open assuming 100bbs.

But yea gg is a nit. I'm also pretty sure we're all being trolled

Agree and I wasn't necessarily talking about the specific hand in question though I didn't make it clear. Just that dismissing a spot out of hand seems pretty bad

(And I don't always trololololol )

None of these questions you posed really address my response tho

either of you have any thoughts about my post #14 up there.

BTW, I am never folding KJs to a $13 raise.

On your second hand, I would fold A10s pre flop vs that player. On the flop you can't call based on pot odds.
But after you Called why are you folding now that you can call?
I think you are not planning your hands, you should know what to do on the turn when you miss and your opponent shoves, calculated your odds for the next street if you can before calling the flop vs one opponent that is likely to bet.
I think your flush draws are going to be more profitable if you stop calling large bets and instead use your fold equity when you flop them while being the agressor, which this is not the case.

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