Is there a compelling reason for someone to calculate the odds of making their hand on the turn or river? The only thing I can think of is where the other guy is all in, and his stack is slightly smaller than the pot.

The quote is from Maureen Feduniak.

QL

StudioGlyphic,

Let’s pretend that everybody doesn’t play NL
You often need to know the odds in NL so you can destroy somebody’s odds of drawing. Let’s say you and your opponent are deep stacked, you flop top pair with top kicker but there’s two suited cards. You want to destroy the pot odds for anybody who’s thinking about trying to draw out cheap. Let’s say you bet $10 and get a caller. Both blinds fold so there’s $25 in the pot ($2/$3 blinds). A pot sized bet makes it $50 in the pot and it costs $25 to call which offers your opponent 2:1 odds (ignoring implied odds) which is insufficient to draw to a flush. Now, he may still chase after his flush but he’s not getting the proper odds to do so (again, implied odds aren’t being considered here). Though you might eventually lose the hand you should make every attempt to punish him on the turn by making the odds inappropriate for his draw on the turn as well. It’s poker so he could spike his miracle card on the river but if that guy routinely chases 4:1 draws while only getting 2:1 pot odds, he’s eventually going to go broke. Unfortunately he may go broke long after he’s busted you
One of the biggest mistakes I see in newish NL players is not understanding how to use your betting to control the pot odds you’re offering someone. You’ll see somebody open for $10 in $100 buy in NL and get 4 callers (yes, at Commerce this happens as you well know) and they flop top pair, top kicker and they throw out a $10 bet. Well, that’s 6:1 odds you’re offering the next player (the odds get even better for each subsequent player). What hand isn’t worth drawing for at 6:1 odds? Say everybody calls, the last guy is getting 10:1 odds!!! You’re just begging someone to draw out on you. In fact, you’re not just begging them, you’re sending them a formal invitation by offering them such amazing pot odds that they can almost justify calling with any two overcards.

Bill

Hey StudioGlyphic,

Actually, your clarification confused me even more
Bill

Hey StudioGlyphic,

Let’s make the following assumptions:

1. Not everybody plays NL so the value of knowing your outs on the turn and the river has some value to limit players.

2. Not every hand in NL is an all-in push (despite what you’ve seen at Commerce ). Often you’ll need to know how much you need to bet to discourage a call if your opponent has the hand you think he does. Let’s say, for instance, that two suited cards hit on the flop and you’re afraid that your opponent may try drawing for a flush. You put out a pot size bet and then he comes all in for considerably more than your bet. Now you’ve really got to reconsider whether or not you had the right read on your opponent. You can get away from the hand a little more cheaply if you think he hit a set or was slow playing aces.

3. As was mentioned in the follow up to BadBlood’s comment, divide by two and now you have your approx. odds on the turn AND the river.

So given the above, I think there’s plenty of reasons to know your odds on both the turn and the river. True, in many other cases you’re only concerned with what your odds are all the way to the river but I, personally, think it’s better to know how to calculate your odds to the next card and then being able to derive your odds to the river from that.

Bottom line though is that I, personally, have the odds pretty much memorized. This post was about quick rule of thumb type calculations at the table as was referenced by quoting Hank’s post on rules of thumb. There are more than a few ways to do these calculations.

You can do them (and be more accurate) using the formula BadBlood put out there (i.e. 1 - (38/47)*(37/46)) but I think that’s too complicated for most people (i.e. the mathematically challenged) to do at the table.

You can use the old 2/4 X the number of outs to get a percentage that you then have to convert into odds which is one more step than what I’ve suggested.

You can memorize them but that takes time to learn.

This seems to be, for me, the most simple way to always have access to your odds of making your hand. If you look at most beginning poker books either they provide you with a chart to memorize or they provide a much more complex mathematical calculation which I believe is a roadblock for many newer players trying to learn how to calculate whether or not a call is correct.

So the answer you seek, StudioGlyphic, is that it’s often less useful to know your odds to make your next card in many NL situations but it’s not completely irrelevent either.
Bill

Um, StudioGlyphic, I think we agree . . . or maybe not
The one example I can think of off the top of my head is where you don’t have the correct pot odds to call one off but you have the correct *implied* odds if you make your hand on the turn or river.

But, in general, I tend to agree. My natural instinct is to look at it one card at a time. Most of the time, if I find myself thinking about the odds of making the hand on the turn OR the river, I’m trying to convince myself to make a call I shouldn’t be making
Bill

can u help me calculate the following probabilities/odds — everyone keeps giving me different figures!I am planning a lotto draw for charity. To make it simple , I plan to involve only 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/0 ;no repeat set ; must be in correct order of draw — ie 3/6 is different from 6/3

The house will draw 5 sets of 2 numbers — eg 1/2 3/6 2/0 /4/9 6/6 9/8

Players must choose 5 sets of numbers —-

What are odds and probability that out of the 5 sets of number chosen, the player will get

1 out of 5 drawn by the house ( 1 in ?????)

2 ” ” ” ”

3 ” ” ” ”

4 ” ” ” ”

5 ” ” ” ”

Pse revert ; thks