Pot Odds 101: The Name of the Game In any poker hand there are many important factors which one needs to consider before making a decision. The strength of your hand, your position, the playing ability and style of your opponent—all of these variables need to be weighed when a player considers whether or not to commit chips to a pot. However, there are two factors which in terms of sheer importance towers above the rest. They are the current size of the pot, and the expected size of the pot at the showdown. These are the most important components of a hand. Nothing else comes close. To understand why, let’s look at an example. Say you have red pocket threes in the small blind, and there are three other players in the hand. The pot was not raised before the flop. Now the flop comes Th 8h 4s. You check, the big blind bets, and the other two players call. Without question, the correct decision here is to fold. You are almost certainly beat already, and you only have about a 22:1 chance of improving your hand to three of a kind. Excellent poker players often have wildly different opinions on how to play any given hand, but you will search long and hard before you find a winning player who would construct an argument for calling here. Now, let’s say you’re in the small blind with those same pocket 3’s, and you’ve found yourself in a pot being contest by eight other players, each of whom has put four bets in the pot before the flop. The flop comes Th 8h 4s, you check, the big blind bets, and six other players call. What do you do? You call, of course. If you spike a three on the turn you’ll probably have the best hand, and there are 43 small bets in the pot. Since you’re ‘only’ a 22:1 dog, you have a very easy call here. Just as it would be hard to find a pro who would advocate calling in the first example, it would be equally hard to find one that would advocate folding in the second. Anytime you’re looking at a 42:1 payout on a 22:1 dog, you’re getting a huge overlay. Calling here is as automatic as folding was in the previous example. Notice that in both examples the size of the pot completely eclipses all other considerations. In the first example it doesn’t really matter how your opponents play, or the fact that your position is poor: even with horrible playing opponents, and possession of the button, you’d still fold here. In the second example these factors don’t matter either. Even against world class players you’d call here, despite the handicap of being in early consideration. In sum, there are very, very few times when the ‘secondary’ considerations will trump your considerations regarding the size of the pot, but there are many times when the size of the pot will completely negate all other concerns. In poker, the size of the pot is the name of the game. Once you learn to effectively gauge the size of the pot, and what its size means to the play of your hand, you’ll be way ahead of many of your opponents when it comes to making proper playing decisions. In this essay we’ll look at three different ways to analyze the size of the pot, and illustrate when each one of these considerations—either by themselves, or in concert with one another- should be employed. These three methods are: 1)      Determining your immediate pot odds 2)      Determining your implied odds 3)      Determining if you’re hand is subject to reverse implied odds POT ODDS Figuring your pot odds, and what this means to your hand, is a fairly basic calculation. All you need to do is determine how much is currently in the pot, and how much it will cost for you to call. Example: you have As Qh in the hole, and raise before the flop after three players have limped in. Both blinds fold, and all three players call your raise. The flop comes Ts 7h 3h. The first player bets, the next calls, and the next folds. Now it’s to you. What are your pot odds? If you answered 11.5:1, you were correct. Before the flop, you and three opponents put 2 bets each in the pots. Both blinds folded, which adds another 1.5 bets to the pot. The flop bettor had added one bet, and the flop caller had added another bet as well. This gives you 11.5 bets in the pot. Since it will cost you one bet to call, your pot odds are 11.5:1. Knowing your immediate pot odds are important, since this gives you a foundation from which to base your playing decisions. But, figuring only your pot odds is rarely enough to ensure that your decision is correct. You also need to figure your implied odds, and whether there are any reverse implied odds at work. To figure this, you (usually) need to have some understanding of how your opponents play. Typically, the worse your opponents’ play, the better your implied odds, and the better they play the more likely it is that your hand is subject to reverse implied odds considerations. Now we’ll look at implied/reverse implied odds, which are often more tricky to calculate. IMPLIED ODDS To figure your implied odds, you add the current pot odds to the number of bets you expect to win if you hit your hand. In a game like no limit Texas hold ‘em implied odds really are the name of the game, since there are plenty of times when you might take much the worst of it on a long shot draw if your opponent has a lot of money in front of him and is inclined towards calling big bets with marginal hands. For example, in a no limit game with a 2-4 ante structure, you might call a fifteen dollar bet ‘heads up’ before the flop with something like pocket 4’s if the money is ‘deep’ and your opponents tends to get married to his hands, since you have a good chance of breaking your opponent if you’re lucky enough to flop a set. Even though you’re only getting about 1.25:1 on a pre-flop call (assuming the blinds fold), if your opponent has three hundred or more bucks in front of him a call here might be correct, since you have a good shot of beating him for his entire stack if you hit on the flop. True, you’re only getting 1.25:1 on a 8:1 dog, which makes it appear as though you’re taking much the worst of hit. But, if hitting your hand will net you 300 dollars when you hit, you’re ‘really’ getting 20:1 on your pre-flop call. The effect of implied odds in limit poker is less exaggerated than in no limit, since you can rarely beat a guy for his whole stack when you make your hand. But implied odds still come in to play. Example: you have 6c 7c, and call on the button after five players have already called. The small blind folds, and the big blind checks. The flop comes Qs 5h 3c. The big blind checks, the next player bets, and all fold to you. At first this might seem like an easy fold, since you’re only 11:1 to hit a 4 on the turn, and there are but a mere 8.5 small bets in the pot. But, notice what happens if you do hit a four. Your opponent will probably bet, thereby giving you a chance to raise. The board is a ‘rainbow’, which means no flush can be completed on the next card, so a 4 on the turn will give you the absolute nuts. If your opponent has a queen in his hand, or something better, he’ll probably call the bet (or perhaps even re-raise, thereby giving you a chance to four-bet). On the river he’ll ‘pay you off’, which will result in you dragging pot that’s the size of 14 small bets. Since it only cost you one small bet to make that hand, and you were 11:1 to hit, with your implied odds you’re getting 14:1 from the pot on a hand that’s 11:1 against; a nice overlay. (Astute players will also notice that you can catch two clubs on the turn and river to give you a flush, which further enhances your hand). As mentioned before, the poorer your opponents’ play the better your implied odds. This is because a bad player will give you more action with a second best hand than a good player will. In the above example it wouldn’t be at all unusual to see a bad player pay off a raise on the turn and a bet on the river with something like pocket 9’s, or a hand like As 5s. Since you can add more hands to the range that a bad player will commit chips to the pot with, you can also increase your implied odds, since it’s that much more likely that your opponent will give you action. Figuring you implied odds is not an exact science, you can’t predict how much action your opponent will give you if you hit. But you can often get a pretty good idea based on the kind of action your opponent(s) has given in the past hands he’s played. If you’re up against a good player, who knows when he’s beat and plays accordingly, then lower your implied odds. Against a maniac or a fish you can increase you estimate. REVERSE IMPLIED ODDS Reverse implied odds is a term used to reference those instances where you can expect lose a lot more money if you’re behind, but only win a small amount more when you’re ahead. Here’s an example: You’re on the button with pocket Q’s. Everyone folds to the player to your right, who calls. You raise, the small binds folds, and the big blind—a tight, tough player- calls. The player to your right calls as well. The flop comes off 9s 9h 3c. The big blind checks, the player on your right bets, and you raise. The big blind calls, and the flop bettor folds. Let’s stop for a minute and take a long look at this hand. You raised before the flop in a position that did not appear to be a blind steal raise (since there was already a caller), and a tough player called in the blind. You’ve been playing a tight, unimaginative game thus far (which is usually a good thing), and you assume the big blind has noticed this. Then, on a raggedy flop, the tough player checked. The next player bet, and you raised. Given that your pre-flop raise did not look like a steal, and that you raised when bet into on the flop, just what is the range of hands with which a tough player would call two bets cold? Remember, the pot is small, and the big blind knows this—which means he’s not out looking for a long shot draw to come in on the turn. And he probably doesn’t have a good-but-vulnerable hand like pocket T’s, since he probably would have three bet here (or bet out on the flop) in the hopes of either eliminating a player or taking the pot right there. Now there’s no way to know exactly what he has here, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure: good players don’t become good players by screwing around with hands like As 5s, or Jh Tc, in spots like this. Yes, you’ll see lousy players happily call here with hands like these, but you won’t see that from a player who knows what he’s doing. This means the list of possible hands your opponent could have has just been narrowed considerably. And unfortunately for you, that list is comprised primarily of hands that have your pocket queens in whole world of hurt. The above hand would be a case study in a ‘reverse implied odds’ situation. If your opponent has a worse hand than yours, he will almost certainly fold it on the turn, meaning you will extract nothing more from him if you’re ahead. But if you’re behind, he’s going to either check raise you or lead bet on the turn, and also put pressure on you on the river. Thus, you’re going to pay through the nose to finish the hand if you’re behind, but you’re not going to collect much-if anything- more by the time the hand has concluded if you’re ahead. When you have a hand that’s getting implied odds, you should be happy to put money in the pot. But, as an extension of that logic, you should be reluctant to put money in the pot when you see a revere implied odds situation develop. Anytime you can only expect action when you’re behind your hand is getting reverse implied odds. Does this mean you should check the turn if your opponent checks? Maybe, and maybe not. It depends on just how tight and tough he actually is. But it’s definitely a course of action that you should consider. Note that against a bad player you would gleefully bet the turn, since there’s a whole galaxy of second best hands that he could be holding here. But the same is not true of a good player. Thus, you’ll find yourself getting reverse implied odds much more often from good players than from bad players, since good players are less likely to sally forth with second best hands. Pot odds. Like the essay title suggests, it’s the name of the game. Although there’s no magic bullet that will make you a winner, learning how to calculate your odds and determining which of the above dynamics apply to your hand will go a very long way towards putting you ‘in the black’.