Odds, Stats and tips...something for everyone!

Ok, I've seen loads of posts recently asking 'what are the chances of x hand up against y hand' etc.
Most poker calculators will help, there is a download at the top of this forum in the stickies, but I have a load of bits of advice to post (mostly scraped together from magazines) that I'll squeeze into this thread to help. I'm sure that everyone will be able to take something away from this.

Dominated kicker: AK vs AQ for example, your drawing to 3 outs and are a 71-23 underdog (6% split)

Most dominated pre-flop: KK vs K2o is a 94-4 favourite

un-paired nuts: The best hand against premium holdings is obviously AK suited (approx 45-55 against QQ for example), but if you suspect your opponent of shoving a low pair, the only unpaired cards that are ahead pre-flop are 10J suited or JQ suited. Both very marginal favourites against 22-77 wheras AK is slightly under a coin flip!

'Coin-Flip': Everyone says that a pair against two overcards is a flip. While QQ vs AK is a classic 'coin-flip' showdown, its actually 55-45/53-46 in favour of QQ (depending on whether one of the Q's shares a suit with the A or K). The closest possible hands are actually 55 vs 9,10 with either the 9 or 10 sharing a suit with a 5. Its a perfect 49.5% either way.

Over Pocket-Paired: If your opponent has a higher pair, your an 80-20 underdog, drawing to 3 outs. Your aces are only beating an under-pair 4 times out of 5.

Ace-crackers: Also known as the 'full tilt nuts' you'll often see players with hands like Q10 say they've got ace crackers. In reality, its 6 7 suited or 7 8 suited with the best chance of stopping bullets with 22.9% equity. Almost 1/4. Scary!

THEY WERE SOOTED: the war cry of donkeys all over the world. often heard when a player flops 4 to the flush with 5 8 suited then rivers a winner all-in against top pair top kicker. Realistically, having your rags suited gives you between 2% and 4% more chance of making a hand (by showdown). General rule, apart from maybe high suited 1 gappers (8 10, 9 J), if you wouldn't play the un-suited, dont play them suited!

Over/Under: Your opponent hold A 10, you hold two cards between their two, like J K. Your only a 57-42 underdog. So if your opponent shoves and your in one of the blinds, you'll usually have the odds to call.

One over: Your opponent still has A 10, your holding K 9 this time, so just one card between his. This time your a 62-37 underdog, still not bad eh?

Over Full-Housed: On a flop of 2 5 8 JJ for example, the chances of both players making a full house with a pocket pair (so discounting the chance of J8 etc) is about 162-1.

Two unders vs Made hand: 8 10 vs QQ for example, your about a 22-78 underdog.

Set Mining: Its hard to muck low and mid pocket pairs because its such a well disguised hand when you hit. Your chances of making a set are about 7.5-1, so you need to make sure your opponent has 8x the size of your bet to give it any value. The chances of two players making a set on the flop are 98-1, so about 1%. This stat drops to 41-1 by the river (2.5%ish), so dont play too trappy, get your money in and get out.

Pocket Pairs: You'll be dealt on average a PP every 17 hands. When you get one, the chances of another player having a pair in a 9 handed game is about 8-9%.

Hitting the flop: The pre-flop raiser (especially if first to act) will often put out a continuation bet after the flop comes down. Bear in mind that he will only have hit the flop approximately 32% of the time (1 in 3). Look for players who ALWAYS lead out after betting pre and target them for re-raises and steals.

Pair v's Overs + flush draw: Lets say QdQh is up against AcKc. Q's are favourite at 54-46. Flop comes down 9c 5c 4h. The made pair is an underdog by the same margin now 45-55 against. If your holding the flush draw and overs, you have to ship it now. If its checked and the turn delivers a blank (no A,K or club) your back down to a 60-40 underdog. If the turn DOES drop a club, its going to be harder to get paid off. Its essential to take the initiative early with these monster draws.

Flopped set vs Overs + flush draw: Same hand as above, but the 9c is the Qc instead. Opponent has the set so our overcards are useless, we've only 30% of winning now by making the flush and avoiding a paired board.

Open ended straight draw + flush draw vs overpair: Your Qd 10c is up against Ac As. Flop comes down 9d Jd 2d giving any diamond, any 8 and any K to make your hand. You'd be about a 62-37 favourite!

Rule of 4: If you didn't make a hand on the flop and suspect you need to improve to beat your opponent, calculate the number of outs which would make you a hand and multiply by 4. So if you have 4 to a flush, there are 9 cards in the deck to complete it. 9 x 4 = 36. This is roughly your chance of winning expressed as a percentage.

Problems with QQ: It looks pretty, but dont slow play/limp queens. There will be an overcard on the flop 41% of the time. This stat creeps to 59% by the river! So raise enough early on to shift the Ace-Rag hands and gauge from there whether your dominated by overcards.

Problems with JJ: There are only 3 ways to play Jacks, and they are all wrong! (someone once said...) Lets say you've final tabled a decent event and raise 4x the BB with JJ. You get 2 callers. SLOW DOWN! Even if your not up against one of the 3 over-pairs, an overcard which can potentially cripple you will flop 57% of the time!

KK into AA: In a 10 handed game, you get dealt KK. The chance of someone else simultaniously holding AA is about 22-1. Hardly worth worrying about in the long run.

AA into AA: Probably the ugliest match up. Both players will have already mentally stacked their chips by the time the cards go on their backs. Your aces are going to run into the other two about once out of every 135 times you get them.

Paired boards: Flop comes down J J 6. The chance of your opponent having a Jack is about 1.4%. Look to check raise on these flops! Read up on 'polarised hands' for more on this!

Flop two pair: Your odds of flopping both your pairs with any given hand is about 50-1 (2%)

Suited Connectors: you have a 1% chance of flopping a flush, 1.3% chance of flopping a straight, 1.5% chance of flopping trips and a whopping 0.09% chance of flopping a boat. Flush opportunity raises to 6.5% by the river, but most decisions are going to be made by the flop. You're going to make a monster hand or strong flopped draw about 5% of the time with these hands. You'll need cheapish flops to get value out of playing suited conn's.

AK: This is either going to win you a big pot, or lose you a big pot. Its hard to keep it cheap with AK. Your a huge underdog to AA and KK (92-7 and 70-30 respectively) but a good 45% chance against all the underpairs. Against 10 J or J Q (which seem to be VERY common match ups) your 65-35 favourite. still only winning 2 out of 3 times! The value with AK comes from seeing all 5 streets, dont give it up cheaply just because you didn't hit the flop hard.

Raising hands, but not calling hands: Hands like A 10, A J, K Q and K J are great hands to raise with, especially in position. Unfortunately, if you call a raise with them you'll rarely know if your ahead unless hitting a massive flop. Be the aggressor with these hands, not the caller.

Re-Raising hands, but not raising hands: Hands like low pairs (22-88) aren't always great for opening pots with. However, in late position with a raise before you, these hands can be great to put your opponent to the test. You have the option of folding, calling (then risking losing the money if you dont hit the set) or RE raising. If its between you and one opponent, he'll find it very difficult to call your raise without Aces or Kings to back him up.

Calling all-ins: Again, its much better to be the aggressor here. If you have AQ or AK and looking at an all-in before you, your likely already beat or facing a coin flip at best. YOU should dictate when your chips go in, if in doubt, throw them away and save your stack!

Fold Equity: Dropping to less than 10 BB's in a tournament is dangerous. It opens up the range of cards can call you with. Even if you find yourself with AA and shove your 6 blinds, there is nothing to deter one or more opponents calling with rags and making a miracle hand to send you to the rail. Better to get aggressive with an average hand and steal some blinds when your hovering around 14 big blinds.

Targets: Steer clear of the short stacks as they will be desperate and liable to call your raises if you bully to often. Dont overplay against the big-stacks either. They have the chips to wipe you out if you pick a bad spot to bluff! Target the mid stacks, 20-35 BB's, as they will be the ones playing the most conservatively, especially around the bubble.

Tells: Its tricky to pick up tells when you cant see your opponent. Some things to look out for though; Insta-calls on the flop can often mean a player has a draw. A bluff or a strong made hand would require some thought. Insta-checks pre or post flop often mean that the player has nothing. Raise away! Long pauses followed by a check make it look as if the player is thinking, when really they are probably on nothing, trying to make you imagine hidden strength. Disappoint them with a strong raise.

POSITION IS EVERYTHING. There is too much to say about position to squeeze in here, if your unsure then do a search on cardschat. The button is the strongest spot though, as everyone has acted before you.

Hope this helped a few people. If any of my maths is wrong please point it out, I'm still unsure myself with a few of these, just working through as best I can. If only a handful of players take something positive from this I'll be more than happy. Unless you apply it against me!
GL at the felt all.

Not even sure if this should be in 'learning' or 'general'.
Sure a mod will sort it out.

Really good info!

If you could edit it, only thing I would suggest would help is if each heading was bolded to make easier to read

That'll be a job for the mod's I'm afraid. Should have though about that when I was writing it!

Great info kevkojak. Thanks for putting time to create and write this info.

No problem Bharat.
Was having a bad morning on the tables so thought I'd take an hour out and scribble some sound advice down on here.
Hope it helps

Thanks Kev this is a great reference for me while I'm playing I appreciate the post, good job!

Best to beat AA is incorrect. It's actually 56s (without sharing the suit of one of the Aces). 56s has 23.05% equity in that situation.

I'd actually thought I'd heard that somewhere, Its the lowest hand you can make a straight with that doesn't split with the Ace. The last couple of guides I've read had said it was a very slim split between 78 and 67 though.
Thanks for the correction.

God-DAMN!!!!
Just had my AA cracked by QQ (ok, fair match-up, just a bad beat) then 2 hands later KK by....you guessed it, K2o! Opponent was priced in in the BB to be fair, but even so, that SUCKS!!!
On my birthday too! :-(

No more poker today. Pub time.

Thanks for all the info.

Good info in there, thanks!
Oh and it sure sucks to have your monster pocket pair beaten by a lower pocket pair! What are the odds again? Because yesterday I lost 3 aces, one against QQ, one against 88, and one against JT (All-in preflop all), and 2 Queens, one against 88(again!), and the other against KT (again all-in)...

This is a really good information.. good post!..
But summarizing it will be great .. so more people will view it and
will make it more interesting
Give you credit to the post though.. good job

Approx. 80/20 (< at least that's how players refer to it...ie... got it in & lost ANOTHER 80/20). Probably more often 83/17, 82/18 basically 4to1 fav.

Ok, it's not K2o, but this is just an example of how I run.

Full Tilt - $0.05 NL RUSH - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

MP+1: $1.01
LP: $4.16
CO: $5.82
BTN: $3.19
Hero (SB): $5.21
BB: $5.62
UTG: $5.00
UTG+1: $1.88
MP: $2.35

Hero posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has K♠ K♣

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO calls $0.05, BTN calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.35, fold, CO calls $0.30, BTN calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.10, 3 players) 2♦ 4♦ 2♠
Hero bets $0.60, fold, BTN calls $0.60

Turn: ($2.30, 2 players) A♠
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.42, Hero calls $0.42

River: ($3.14, 2 players) 5♦
Hero checks, BTN checks

BTN shows K♥ 2♥ (Three of a Kind, Twos)
Hero mucks K♠ K♣ (Two Pair, Kings and Twos)
BTN wins $2.94

You're complaining about your luck when the dipshit didn't even get 1/2 his stack in against you? If he was even remotely competent he would have raised the flop and doubled up. I'd say you're lucky sir.

Lol yeah, I was just going for the K2 vs KK. I lost the min there.