I'm getting the strong impression that in order to excel at understanding and playing poker, or simply put to 'get it', you have to 'just get' maths. A photographer 'gets' composition and what 'looks' right, a musician 'gets' tonality, a poker player just 'gets' probability and maths.
I mean given a logical explanation and a lot of brain power I can eventually understand a mathematical concept, but it isn't intuitive to me, mostly. Arithmetic and what not are fine, but when it comes to things like 'EV' and long term gain and incorporating that into short term play... so far the amount of mathematical information that I as a beginner have come across and that needs consideration on every single hand seems more complicated than the equations required in simulating a biological process in a computer.
Would you all say you just 'get it'?
...not at all I just "get" how it works...
from you other posts, I see you "get" what a 5:1 or 4:1 drawing hand is...
...and I'd assume you "get" what you are holding...
so how exactly do you know to call or fold?
It's actually simpler than it looks...
ok, your draw is 5:1 to hit...what size bet do you call and to what size bet do you fold to a $100 pot?
well there's a hint in the 5:1
...if you have all the time in the world, a pencil and paper and a calculator handy:
you start by finding the "break even point" - higher than this value fold, lower call
the total pot size (or the base pot plus the bet and call) per every 6 calls times "how much" per call
or
pot/(total calls * cost per call)...
so for $100 pot...
it becomes: ($100 + 2X)/(6 * X) where "X" is how much per call
Yuck! the math sux even with all the time in the world
AND a calculator...
but let's continue...
so to "break even" the net ratio will be one..win as much as you lose
so...
($100 + 2X)/(6X) = 1
pull out the (yuck) algebra and solve for X:
multiply both sides by 6X we get
6X = 100 +2X
add -2X to both sides....
6X-2X = 100
or
4X = 100
divide both sides by 4
X=25
Does that work? Let's see...
in 6 similar
hands,
Pot $100, villain bets $25, you're sitting on a 5:1 draw call $25
so you put in $25 six times or $150
out of those 6 times you win once: the $100 the villain's bet of $25
and your call of $25 for a total of $150
...you risked $150 and won $150 so you broke even
Good grief...high school algebra does have a real purpose in life! :shot:
...but good grief...we don't have all the time required to do that...or do we??
look back and you'll see that with a 5:1 it simplified to
6X-2X = 100
...and that 6X is ALWAYS the both sides or the 5:1 ADDED together
...and that 2X is ALWAYS twice the bet...
and since it's ALWAYS written as 5:1 or 4:1 or even (yuck) 2.33:1
...so really we're ALWAYS adding 1 to the left side BEFORE subtracting 2
...which will ALWAYS be the left side minus 1
...and then we ALWAYS divide the pot by this number!
...so all of a sudden, if you know you're 5:1 and the pot is $100
then 5-1 is 4...
100/4 (easy maths, no?) is 25 so $25 is "break even"...$26 fold, $24 call..piece of cake, no?
poker life would be a piece o cake if the pot was always $100, no?
5:1 becomes 4 .... pot of $100 divided by 4 the break even point is
$25
4:1 becomes 3 ... pot of $100 divided by 3 the break even point is about
$33
2.33 becomes 1.33...pot of $100...ummm..yuck..well wait...
1.33 is "one and a third" or 4/3 pot of $100 divided by 4/3 is...
*gasp* that algebra stuff is handy again...
it's the same as 3/4 * 100 (remember that whole invert and multiply crud?)
or the break even point is
$75!
So pot of $100, bet of $35...
5:1 draw? fold
4:1 draw? fold
2.33:1 draw?
CALL!
rut rho...what about a pot of $300,$500 or $1200? :banghead:
..actually still easy...the pots are just 3,5,and 12 times as big..
..so the break even point is just 3, 5 and 12 times the break even point for $100
so $300 pot: 5:1 draw becomes $75, a 4:1 is ~$99 and a 2.33:1 is $225
and so on and so on