Free Poker Online Games Beginners Guide To Implied Odds And Pot Odds
Is poker about skill or luck? This is a debate that seems to have no end. For many new and free poker online players who don’t know what they’re doing it’s luck.
For players who play with logic and common sense it’s a skill game and one core part of that skill game is some simple math that allows the player to essentially create their own luck. We’re talking of course about pot odds, implied odds and rounding.
Pot Odds relate to the number of chips that sit on the middle of the board because of bets, call, raises etc. The total of all those chips is the size of the current pot.
For example – There are 400 chips in the pot and you are considering a call of a 100 chip bet. This means you have Pot Odds of 4 to 1, that is, the 400 chips in the pot divided by the 100 chips that you need to bet.
Implied Odds
Relate to the number of chips that are stacked in front of your competitors stacks in the current hand, plus the number of chips that are in the current pot. Lets say you and 2 players are still in a hand.
Player a has 2000 chips, Player b, 3000 chips. There are 1,000 chips in the pot. If you need to call a 400 chip bet, you will get Implied Odds of 15 to 1. This results from the 6,000 chips total held by the 2 other players and the pot versus the 400 chips you would need to use.
Rounding – Making Life Simpler
When you get your 2 pocket cards, 50 cards remain unseen so you will use 50 as the basis. You don’t need to worry that this changes to 47 unseen post flop, 46 post turn etc. We stick with 50, it is close enough and makes life a lot easier.
Example – You get King/Queen unsuited, and the flop shows Ten, Jack, Four rainbow (an unsuited flop). This means there 8 ‘outs’ (chances open) for you to get an open end straight draw; the 4 nines and 4 Aces that are unseen.
So there is an 8 in 50 chance of catching an ‘out’ on the turn; and, 8 in 50 which equates to 16 in 100, a 16% chance of hitting our desired straight on the turn, basically 1 in 6 chance.
In this example, if you’re not getting a minimum of 5 to 1 Pot Odds there is no sense chasing the 9′s and Aces. But 5 to 1 Pot Odds vs the 1 in 6 chance only makes you dead even long term.
When playing with Pot odds you need to look for advantage with every bet. If 5 to 1 is dead even, then 7 to 1 is a 40% advantage, 9 to 1 a 80% advantage. So, if you have a Pot Odds advantage play the hand, for me a 50% advantage is acceptable but play a bit to settle on a level that is OK for you.
However, it’s not Pot Odds that are going to result in ultimate success. For big success and to beta up on both good and bad players requires timely application of Implied Odds which, at the right time, can be a lot more powerful than simple Pot Odds.
In the situation above, 5-1 Pot Odds dictated we should fold. But what if you are playing against some crazy donk with a stack much larger than the pot? With our open end draw, any 9 or Ace on the turn or river will allow us to eliminate this player.
So you should consider the Implied Odds as well as the Pot Odds while being sure you don’t take excessive risks. If the Pot Odds are ‘respectable’ meaning within 25% of ideal and Implied are good then go for it but be sure to practice on free poker games first! I hope this guide to pot odds was useful, see NoPayPOKER.com for more free poker online games training lessons.