Implied Odds

Stu_Ungar

Stu_Ungar

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Implied odds.. what are they and how do I calculate them?

I understand pot odds and my understaniding of implied odds is that they are an estimate of the final pot odds.

I have just been reading a post about set mining where aliengenius talks about stack sizes and how the ratio of stack sizes determins whether a call is prifitable or not.

Is stack ratios the key to implied odds?
 
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Toad

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Implied odds are what you expect to win if you hit your hand. Stack size is a big factor in implied odds as well as how likely it is that your opponent will call your future bets (i.e. How well is your hand concealed?)

Set mining is a good example....

Based on pot odds only, set mining would usually be a losing play. The odds of hitting your set on the flop are about 8:1 so you would want 8+ people in on the hand in order to make seeing the flop worthwhile. Pretty rare that you'll see that many people in on a hand.

But the implied odds make it worthwhile to see the flop sometimes. If you do hit your set you have a monster hand that is very well concealed. Chances are you will be able to get alot more money out of your opponent because he doesn't see the set coming.

The other thing to take into account is stack sizes. If your opponent (or you) are short stacked the amount of money you can win is decreased so your implied odds go way down. That's why set mining is -EV when you are up against someone who jsut bought in for the minimum.
 
c9h13no3

c9h13no3

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Implied odds are how much you can expect to win if you hit your hand. So if you know a player has a hand that they pretty much can't fold, he's offering you a lot of implied odds.

For example, you hold 75, and call a raise from a player holding aces. If the flop comes out giving you a straight, or two pair, you will likely take that player's entire stack. So the implied odds are the amount of money left in his stack, divided by the cost of the raise. So if he raised to 3xBB's with a 100xBB stack, then 97/3 = 32.3.

But hands like 1 card flush draws usually have poor implied odds because its so hard to win more money when you make your flush, because players generally will not call bets with 4 of a suit on the board.

So if you're playing an implied odds hand, look for the following to figure out if you have implied odds:

- Opponent has plenty of money left
- Opponent likely has a big hand that can't fold
- Your draw/big hand will be well concealed when you hit it

If you're playing limit, implied odds are usually easy to compute since you'll probably get 1-2 more bets out of that player on subsequent betting rounds.
 
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smithtown1

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Thanks for explaining the implied odds. I have a better understanding now
 
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