Pot odds

You know in poker calculating pot odds is vital, well when you are playing with your friends on a fun poker night. I know they do not calculate these odds and therefore cannot calculate the correct bets to make. so my question is, is there much point in me calculating them if they dont?

Sure, it sounds like they play more fun which means they are probably playing a lot of hands. If you are trying to make some money off them, sit tight and definitly calculate pot odds. It is sort of a natural thing in my head to do. For example if you have a flush draw postflop, the pot is $10 and they bet $20 into you.. there is no way you should call that.

adding on to this last sentense "unless you have good implied odds" but on flush draws its very hard to get good implied odds because it is very obvious when you hit. But since your friends dont seem like that strong of players maybe they are not good enough to lay down once the flush hits.

your implied odds are the money you are expected to win if you make your hand. So same example, if the pot is $10 and he bets $20 that makes $30 in pot and you have to call $20. Obviously these are terrible odds but if he has like $300 behind we "might" make this call because we figure he is not strong enough and will stack off to us if we hit our flush.

Implied odds in live games are the big cash cows.

yeah most of them dont play half as often as i do. thx for ur quick replies. hmmm i wish i could play some good opposition in live games, i know at a casino i will just get robbed of my money but it would be nice to have a buy-in, a certain number of chips and play from that. rather than using ur money for each bet. it would make the game more accessible for me :P know any places like that?

You should always calculate odds, and not just pot odds and implied odds, but also the odds of your opponent bluffing, betting third pair, etc.
This is how you gain an edge and end up winning in the long run, because even if you're a god at reading what your opponent has and make good laydowns preflop 100% of the time, you'll at best be break even if you make tiny mistakes over and over again postflop.

Effective odds are more of a limit concept, but can also help you refrain from making too many loose calls. Let's say you have AK of diamonds in the CO and your raise gets called by a MP player only. Pot is 400.

Flop comes 4d8d2s. Opponent bets 175 : you figure to have some implied odds (opponent has 3000 behind him after betting) Since you have so many outs, you call. Turn comes Qs.

Now, opponent bets 300 into the 700 pot. Should you have called in the first place ? If we take a look back, it is clear that our call was marginal at best if we intended to follow through with our hand. The effective odds have us put 475 into a roughly 1000 chips pot, getting 2:1 on our hand. We do not have nearly the odds (the AK of spades are tainted, giving us 4 outs for overs and 9 for the flush) to take this price: opponent has called our raise preflop and we probably now have to lay our hand down. Plus, if the flush hits on the river, we are NOT getting payed off by anyone with half a brain (unless villain has a set). Raising was the best move on the flop: anyone trying to buy the pot would fold and we might get a free card on the turn if called.

how do u go about calculating odds of ur opponent bluffing? i tend to just work out how the two guys on my left and two on my right play, and make my choices from there. so can u explain how u calculate 'effective odds'

Effective odds are the odds you get from the pot with more than one card to come. You are a 1:4.22 underdog to fill a four-flush on the next card, but a 1 3/4 by the river. This doesn't mean you should take less than 4.22:1 on your money on a certain street because unless you are all-in, you'll have to put more money to see the next card.

For example, the pot is 50 and you are heads-up in a LHE game (10/25). You have a four-flush on the flop. You calling the first street is correct, but only if:
a) You only peel one card
b) you have reasonable chance to have the best hand right now and still have it on the turn (in order to stay in). Let's say you have paire a J and the flop is two of your suit.

This is because on the turn, your opponent will likely bet again, this time 25 in a 70, meaning you will have put 35 to win this 70 if you hit on the river. Not nearly enough to call in the first place if you only have flush outs and intend to go through with your hand. This is also why raising on a draw is profitable since we are more likely to get a free card on the turn

So, in order to calculate effective odds, add all the bets you will to call and compare that to the size of the pot on the last street (we pay 35 in the example, to win 70). Since our opponent is not likely to pay us off on the river, we cannot add 25 to the pot, and even then, our odds would be 60 to win 115, wich doesn't tally to 1 3/4:1.

In NL, implied odds often are way more in line with the correct strategy, especially with limpers and/or many callers since the bets increase a lot in bewtween streets and the odds of getting payed off big balances the small mistake of peeling on off.

And calculating the odds of someone bluffing requires you to play a lot of hands with this particular person and is sometimes pretty difficult to do. This is why software that indicate different stats (namely agression) are very helpful. Someone who is always agressive on flop but calms down on later streets when called is more likely to bluff than someone who will just call every street.

Sounds like a Sit'n'Go to me.

good info.. i need to read up on implied and pot odds.

DJ11 can u elaborate, ive never played a sit and go. do u find them at casinos or...?

Sit-N-Go tournaments are very popular online. As the name implies, once a certain # of people have bought-in the tourny starts. The most common is 1 table of 9 or 10 players, but 2,3,5 even up to 20 tables are also available. The top finishers get paid. Some live Casinos have also started these.

Goldog

Btw does any1 know a place with alot of the common pot odds written down, would be handy for me to have that link so i can learn the more common ones.

Just search for an article on it, it's real simple to learn.