Hey everybody!

I got a question for you - how do I calculate the pot odds in HU poker?

I know how it's done technically but I mean that in HU the pot is always too small regarding the BB. If in 6max sng somebody raises you can get 5-4-3 calls and the pot will be big enough to call.

Example: BB - 20. UTG raises 60, MP calls, CO calls, BTN (hero) calls. The pot is 260 on the flop. You have a flush draw and you need pot odds better then 4:1. Then UTG bets 60, MP calls, CO folds, you call (pot odds are 6:1).

Let's have a look at the similar situation in HU: BB20, SB raises 60, you call. On the flop the pot is 120, you have a flush draw (and need 4:1 or better pot odds) but the problem is that the pot is relativelly small to the blinds. Nobody makes a contbet like 1bb right? At least 1/2 a pot. So the SB makes a contbet 60 (1/2) a pot and you have pot odds only 3:1 and you should fold. Am I understanding it right?

So basically there are no situations in HU poker when you can call a bet drawing a combination? The only option is donk betting (you have the fold equity) or check raising (again fold equity) or hoping that the opponent will check behind and give you a free card? Or in HU poker we just don't take in count the pot odds and call bigger bets? How is it working?

You're completely wrong. Pot odds are still pot odds - works the same, but implied odds is something that is way more important here + rarely you face a situation where your only outs are outs that give you a flush or straight. There are overcards that are way stronger than in 3-4 way pot. Remember this is heads up so your opponent also miss a flop most of the time - also completely different than in multiway pot.

So as i said above - we don't take into consideration pot odds?? If you have AK on the board Q2J so then yes you have 10 outs 3xA, 3xK, 4xT, but if you have T9 then what? No overcards and a K can give the opp better straight so I'm speaking about clean outs. Almost never you get good pot odds to call in HU so how do we do the calculating? Does it become approximate and we begin to gamble instead of calculating?

First of all - you cannot always put your oponent on top pair. Approximately 2 out of 3 times player misses flop (not counting draws). So if you only count your clean outs you will be blinded down in 99% of games. You take pot odds into consideration but implied odds are way more important.

And by the way - T9 on a XQJK board is nuts in HU. You cannot be afraid of AT in this spot. Remember you have only one opponent here. Do not put him on pure nuts on every board, and do not think he improves with every card.

Dude, i got it, but you don't follow me... How do you calculate the odds? If you have a draw straight or flush you have 5:1 and 4:1 odds. If I cont bet 100% of flops 1/2 a pot you will never have good odds to call. That's the problem. And there are opponents that cont bet 3/4 or even bet pot so you are way far from drawing well the hand. So you just fold 100% times you have a draw? How do you calculate your odds? Do you do it?

Dude - you're not following me. You just do not get basic concept of odds. Start with some books or movies... Poker for dummies or something like this.

Poker is a multi street and multi decision game though. In many cases, implied odds are more important than straight pot odds. If the action just ended on the flop and the last two cards were dealt out, c/f would be better in your scenario, but that's not how poker works (if stacks were only t120 and t60 was a shove on the flop then fold would be best there, again making some assumptions that we are up against a made hand). We have many different things that can happen, the turn could check through and we could bluff the river (or win at showdown), we could hit our draw and get a high payoff etc.

Implied odds. Easy.

No, because you have implied odds. You don't in the situation you describe.
You might want to calculate odds if opponent is all-in, you put him on some range and you see if you have correct direct odds to call him.

As said many times itt, the more streets have to come, the more implied odds > direct odds.

Ok guys... Implied odds... How do you calculate them? Seems like nobody's following me...

According to implied odds with a flush draw should i call 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 1/1 pot? How do you calculate your implied odds? Do you do it or just gamble?

Seems like you're a poker dummy cuz in 3 messages you didn't explain how do you calculate the odds - the problem that I have. So if yall say - implied odds then there's no need to use no odds right? No calculing, just say to yourself - implied odds and call any bet??? Then the whole concept of odds is useless according to you! Just gamble people, implied odds (and nobody knows what are they according to what you've already said) and stuff...

No offence but we're not getting to the point...

U just gamble, dude. That is the answer you want, right? So you have to decide, gamble or fold, cause they almost always have top pair when cbetting.

Another concept that I'd like to mention about implied odds - the relative stack size.

Since we're in the HU SNG part of forum I'm talking about this type of game. If we play cash and the stacks are deep we can talk about good implied odds, if we play MTT and we have really deep stacks like 100BB or more we can talk about it, but playing HU SNG you're stack is relativelly small and the amount of the chips you can possibly win is low. I mean with blinds 50/100 on the flop the pot is usually 200 - 300 chips and the opp can have smaller stack like 800 chips. So very often the situation is like this... He bets pot 300 and has a small stack left. So I mean that the nature of the game doesn't allow us to draw here. It would be more +EV to play KJ or QT than 67s because even if you have a draw you can't draw it so it would have been better just fold this hand preflop and play really strong hands that can win on their own.

What do you think about it?

If you don't know the answer than there's no need to write this xxx

If it was a funny joke than you really need to improve your joking skills cuz it's not funny.

I'm trying to tlak here about serious things and not argueing. If nobody here knows why he calls bets with draws - it's really sad...

Pot odds is an easy concept to guide your decision with all-ins.

The moment you are not having an all-in; the usability diminishes simply because there is future street play. This future street play is not incorporated in the equation of pot odds.

Implied pot odds, incorporate to an degree future street play into an odds equation. And such the illusion is created that implied pot odds is a great tool to figure out what to do.

When you look at your questions that rise through this thread; you start to realize what I wrote down. And such the impression is there that the way to go at this moment is to figure out how to translate future street play into a summarizing number implied odds to figure out your play.

Theoretically this can sound as a great idea. Pragmatically however, you are required to figure out all possible ending nodes, assign frequencies to the pathways, summarize it. Essentially you start doing what tree-solvers like CREV do. And such instead to attempting to do this by hand, you are better off at this point in time to buy CREV. Set up trees there and start exploring poker that way.

While you start doing that, you quickly have to face several pragmatical problems like trees that grow real big and such not a lot of data points in each branch is equated and such the accuracy is rather low. Another problem is assigning ranges and frequencies to the branches. And so forth, ...

And such, I anticipate to some degree the arrival of a new annoyance; the annoyance of still not having received a conclusive answer to 'what is the correct method to figure ... out'. There is no problem with that.

See it like this (here follows my silly attempt in providing an simular situation):
'THE correct method to figure ... out' is the target you want to hit.
You can use pot odds. They have an accuracy of 50km.
You can use implied odds. They have a better accuracy then pot odds.
You can use tree-solvers. They have a better accuracy then implied odds.
You think about the relation between big trees and the low number of data-points equated in it and maybe you find a better way to increase accuracy.
You think about ways to improve the accuracy of assigning frequencies and ranges.
And such you keep improving.

Although it is annoying that you still have not 'THE correct method to figure ... out'; you can settle with a better approach that is provided to you in this thread then you were currently using. And you can even start thinking and exploring about better methods ...

There is always also a degree to what people are prepared to share.

Another thing, at a certain moment you start to use own written GTO/max EV software and such. At that moment, the accuracy became retarted high.
When that becomes part of your possibilities, your interest is no longer increased accuracy of the method to figure things out. At that moment your interest is into optimizing (accuracy method)/(capability to memorize and use at tables) simply because the accuracy is only possible with providing an overwhelming amount of data.

Is this some kind of a joke or what? Dude - do some basic calculations. You have pot odds to call 1/2 pot cbet with flush draw + 1 overcard. Sometimes youre better than that so you can call with just pot odds. With shallow stacks it is easier to make your opponent put all his chips at some opoint of a hand, so you can easily predict your implied odds which most of the time are enough to call.

why are you playing a raised pot oop at 8 BB effective stacks? Its possible a play like this is something a very good player can make if he has good reasons but not for someone who needs help with pot odds

this feels like a troll to me

What's wrong with playing in a rp oop 8bb?

what hands are you calling with

a lot of hands. Pot odds too good- just think about how limit holdem might be played at 8bb.

Minraising a wide range ip at 8bb should be worse than a predominantly limping/shoving range. The way to exploit this oop is to flat more hands that would either call a shove or fold to a shove.

flatting minr 8bb deep is the bee's knees

minraising at 8bb is really terrible with most hands if villain flats good wide range, which in return means flatting a mr at 8bb with most stuff is pretty damn good

Ye flatting wide is good as a std + most people that play minr strat play very defined ranges that you can flat even wider against (any2 against some guys) if you play the good strat postflop