ChuckTs said:
well if he's got an 8 or 9 then you've only got 3 actual outs, your aces
This is precisely what I want to bring up! (Sorry for taking some time to get back to this subject, I've been extremely busy at work) Your use of the word "actual" is very suspect. Here is the core of what I have to say:
Don't think of hands as "made hands" or "drawing hands." Learn to estimate how likely your hand is to be best at showdown and adjust your pot odds accordingly.
This means that a hand shouldn't be judged only by its current value, but how likely it is to improve: A hand should be judged by its
equity. If its equity is higher than the price you have to pay to see a showdown, you should continue. So, for the example hand I posted, let's make some educated guess as to what my opponent holds. Let's, specifically, say that he has K9, giving him top pair and a good kicker. What's my equity against K9? Well, I could chicken out and use the
odds calculator, but let's try it out in a way that I could do at the table:
3 aces will give me top pair.
Running hearts will give me the nut flush.
I also have runner-runner straight possibilities.
I know how to translate the 3 aces into making
pot odds decisions; they are 47-to-3, and so I need the pot to lay me ~12-to-1 in order to continue (if you don't know how to calculate this, we need to take some steps back, but that's alright - let me know). But what about the runner-runner possibilities? Do they even count? Do they happen so rarely that it's not even worth thinking about?
They count. They do happen rarely, but so do hitting inside straights, and we already know that we should chase those if the pot is big enough - the same goes for runner-runner hands. They don't happen often, but they may very well be happening often enough to tip our decision from fold to call. Let's see:
The likelyhood of drawing running hearts is (9/47)*(8/46) = 3.3%.
The likelyhood of drawing a runner-runner straight is roughly the same.
So together, these backdoor draws add up to about 7% - meaning that 7% of the time, I will end up with the best hand on the river. Getting an ace on the turn or the river happens about 7% of the time, as it were. So these draws are actually as strong as my overcard outs! Okay, so my equity is 14%, or about 7-to-1. The pot is laying me 4-1. Calling here, therefore, is absolutely awful. The bad odds are somewhat offset by
a) this is a loose and aggressive game. If I hit my outs, I will get action
b) my backdoor draws will either materialize on the turn, or I will miss them completely. I will not have to pay a big bet on the turn for my redraw, if its not there.
This is not enough to warrant a call in this small pot, however - and the pot is still small; 4 bets is nothing.
Mnemonic tricks: A backdoor flushdraw is worth 1.5 outs. A backdoor straight draw* (e.g. 7-8-9) is worth about 1.5 outs as well. You can usually figure overcards to be worth about 1.5 outs each, as they may be tainted.
* Note that a 6-8-9 backdoor straight draw is much worse than a 7-8-9; the former can only make two straights, and the latter can make three.
Anyone have any hands we can look at for comparisons?
