tips on pot odds

[BruceJ]

I had this e mailed to me by another player a couple weeks ago. Hope it helps someone.
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Know Your Pot Odds and Win More
The first step to annihilating your competition on the green felt is developing an understanding of pot odds and how they should impact your betting behaviors. Despite having a college degree I am brutal at math, but the nice thing about calculating pot odds is that you don't have to be a genius. If you are a genius, you probably should be trying to cure cancer or AIDS - so quit reading this article and go do some research.
Most new Texas Hold Em players fail to recognize the importance of betting in-line with what their pot odds are. Good for us, bad for them. Let's take a minute or two to go over some simple poker terminology that will help us better understand this concept.
Pot - All of the money on the table (in the middle, blinds, bets)
Outs - Number of cards in the deck that will make your hand a winner.
For me, it's easiest to walk through examples in order to understand a new concept. So let's go through one:
Let's say that we were dealt - Ac 3c
The flop is laid down and it is - 2c Jd 5c
This is the point where we need to start calculating how many outs we have. If a club comes up on the board that would give us an ace high flush. If a 4 comes up we would have a straight, and if an Ace hits we would have top pair. So we've worked through our options, now let's figure out how many outs we have.
There are 9 clubs left in the deck + 3 Aces + 4 Fours for a total of 16 outs. As far as we are concerned there are 47 cards left in play. So right now our odds of winning the hand are 16 out of 47. If we divide 16 by 47 and then multiply by 100, that will give us a percentage of 34%. A simpler way of looking at it is how many times does 16 go into 47, roughly 3 times or a ratio of 3:1.
Now we need to figure out how we are going to apply this knowledge to proceed with betting. If the blinds are 5$/l0$, the pot is 50$, and the amount and the bet to you is $10 - that is a 5:1 ratio (20%). Given that, we should definitely call or throw out a small raise.
Let's assume that we are last to act and we call. Next is the turn and 3h comes up.
So not only do we have a pair, it also gave us a couple more outs. Our outs are now: 9 clubs left in the deck + 3 Aces + 4 Fours + 2 Threes for a total of 18 outs. If we divide 18 goes into 46 2.5 times for a ratio of 2.5 to 1 (39%). This means that we should call or bet as long as the pot size is more than 2.5 times the size of the call or bet you make. So if the pot is $100 and the bet is $20 to you, that is 5:1 ratio and we should call or raise.
So how do pot odds help us from losing our chips and winning bigger pots? Let's start by figuring out how pot odds help us from losing a lot of chips. In the previous example we had pot odds of 2.5:1 (39%) with a $100 pot on the table. Let's say the bet was $50 to us or 2:1. Since those odds are worse than our odds of winning, we would be over betting our hand and in a position to lose more than we would get for our money.
Now for killing the competition dead, it's better than just regular killing them by the way. Using the same example of 2.5:1 pot odds and a $100 pot. If the bet to us is $10 and we just decide to call, we are essentially getting a deal because we are calling a 10:1 ratio when actually our odds of winning the pot are better than that. But we actually can afford to raise, and it makes sense to raise according to our odds. Since the bet is $10 we could still raise the pot up to $39 and be betting in accordance to our probability of winning the hand. Pot odds allow us to make large bets with confidence knowing that we are playing probabilities. So we raise to $35, that puts the heat on the other player. Chances are if you are playing somewhere like Poker4Ever and Party Poker where the competition is weaker, you will get a call and hopefully hit your card. If someone was limping in with $10 chances are they are fishing for one or two cards, where we have 18 cards that can help us.
Being able to increase bets when you have many outs or fold when the action is raised too high will allow you to minimize bad beats and give you chip leverage to take large pots when you hit your hand. The take home message is that the less outs you have the bigger the pot needs to be to play. I've demonstrated how to calculate and use pot odds to help you make smarter bets. Now get out there, start practicing, and show no mercy.

[freeringo]

So how do yu feel about this yourself Bruce?

Is this the best advise in the world or for everyone?

Everybodies game is different and play situations differently.

However, knowledge of pot odds is vital to maximize your chip management.

So good post

[eejit101]

Just ask ringo! Who listened to me on odds for once and wins more now!