Significance of Online Poker

Dated: 27 Jan 2012
Posted by admin
Categoiry: Online Poker
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Been playing poker for a few years now. Sometime I win & sometimes I lose. I’ve heard about pot odds & how it makes a difference on whether or not you should call a bet. I really don’t understand the concept. In fact I have NEVER considered pot odds when playing poker. Are pot odds that important?  If I never consider the odds the pot is giving me, am I doomed? Where can I learn about the fundamentals of pot odds?

Answer 1:

The basic idea of pot odds: Say you are about a 4:1 dog to make your hand and that if you do so, you’ll win the pot. If the pot holds four times the amount you need to bet, you bet is “correct,”
that is, if you make that bet every time the same situation arises, you will break even in the long run. One out of four times, you hand will get there and you’ll get your money back. Thus, if there is more than four times your bet, you are making money in the long run if you act similarly every time. Without this kind of mathematical analysis, one ends up making calls on “feel.” While this can be lucrative for some, it probably isn’t great for beginners. You might get bluffed off pots but not winning those is far better than losing more by making calls not warranted by the odds.

Answer 2:

Well, it’s pretty simple-#1 if the pot is big, and if the cost to win the pot is low then the pot odds is good!  #2 if the pot is small, and the cost of win is great then the pot odds are bad.  #3 Always play when the pot odds are good and throw away when the pot odds are bad—thus ended the lesson of poker for today!

Answer 3:

Having read (probably way too many) books, which go into intricate and painful detail computing pot odds, your one paragraph answer to this guy pretty much sums it all up. Don’t take this the wrong way, however, I found it quite amusing. Sometimes (often) we tend to over analyze things to the point of making simple things much more complicated than they are.

What you wrote is, IMHO, exactly right. Painted with a broad stroke, to be sure – but correct none the less. I wonder how significant the difference would really be (in profit), if we just looked at it from the “wide angle view” vs. drilling down into the minute detail of calculations, suggested by the authors.

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