Hello,

I'm fairly new to this forum and poker playing, currently trying to improve my game by reading hand analysis and porker articles.

Unfortunately i'm struggling with the whole +EV and -EV, pot odds and implied odds concepts.

My main problem here is applying these concepts while in game (in the time i have to decide).

Pot odds should be relatively simple to estimate real time in a game. Simply look at the size of the pot and compare it to how much you have to call. For instance, if the pot is $100, and someone has made a $25 bet and the action is to you, you are getting 100:25 or 4:1 pot odds. You can then compare this to the chances of your hand winning (e.g., making your draw).

Implied odds are a little fuzzier to estimate in real time, as it depends on how likely a specific opponent is going to continue to put money into the pot, how large the effective stack sizes are, and how much he or she will probably put in on future streets of action. A typical example of implied odds estimation in a game is when you have a small or medium pocket pair, and there is an early position raiser. Based on reads and his stats, you put this player on a big pair (TT-AA). The game is $1/2 NL and he has bet, say, $7. Ignoring rake, the current pot is $1+$2+$7 = $10 and the action is to you. You know that the only way you're going to win at a river showdown is if you make your set. The odds of hitting your set on the flop are roughly 8:1. The direct pot odds you're getting to make a preflop call are 10:7, which is nowhere near 8:1, so you're not getting the right direct pot odds to make this call..... BUT, you might be getting enough implied odds to make the call. If your opponent has a large stack that is greater than 8 times the current amount you have to call, and you are sure that he will stack off with just an overpair, your implied odds are pretty good and you might consider making the call.

Are you saying the pot is $100 and then someone bets $25? Or, the pot was $75, someone bet $25, and now it's $100? In the first case, your pot odds would be 5:1.

Uh, I don't think so. Direct pot odds are expressed as X:Y, where X is the amount that is currently in the pot, and Y is the amount that you have to call.

In this example, there was $100 in the pot BEFORE you call. The amount you have to call is $25. Therefore the pot odds are 100:25, or 4:1.

I just looked it up in two separate poker books, and they all give similar examples. Take a look at wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_odds :

"In poker, pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the cost of a contemplated call[1]. In other words, if the pot contains $100, and a player must call $10 to stay in the hand, then the player has 100-to-10, or 10-to-1 (commonly expressed as 10:1), pot odds. Pot odds are often compared to the probability of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value. Indeed, a common usage of the term is to say that one "has pot odds", meaning that the present pot odds, compared to one's estimated chance of winning, make it profitable to call."

Hope that helps.

Oops, my bad, Freewill. I just re-read your post, and I think we're saying the same thing. Sorry.

Yeah, I'm just saying your example is a little ambiguous. It's not clear whether you meant there's $100 in the pot before someone bet, or after.

Hey OP, it seems that you have a good understanding of the information, why do you not have enough time to calculate while on the table? Heres a couple things that come to mind...take what you want and leave the rest!

1. If you are playing more than 1 or 2 tables you may want to cut back until feeling more comfortable.

2. Maybe practicing doing the calculations even when you are not in the hand. Use pot/implied odds to calculate what the person would need to stay in the hand. Or look at the bet and try to figure out if the bet is made to weed out a particular flush/straight draw.

3. Maybe save some hands so that you can recalculate after your session is over, see if your "in the moment" calculation is close enough to the actual calculation.

4. The only way to perfect this is really repitition...practice makes perfect.

Good luck.

^^^^^ This. If I understand your question correctly, I felt the same way when I started applying those concepts. The longer I played and tried, the more automatic it became.

I mean that there is $100 in the pot at the moment you have to decide whether to call the $25 or not.

thx for the comprehensive response, how do you go about calculating the odds to hit your set. Sorry but i am really nooby at this.

How could the odds of hitting a set on the flop be 8:1? There are 50 unseen cards to 2 cards that complete the set. Isn't that 50:2 or 25:1?

Thanks.

When there only were 1 card on the flop, that's right, but the flop - as you surely know - contains three cards, so the odds change.

There's a reason they call this the beginner's forum!

Thank you for that clarification. Very helpful.