Hi Guys,
I'm struggling a bit with this concept. Been playing poker for a long time, but looking to be more successful in the long run and really want to master this concept, can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

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Let’s say I have j-10. Unsuited Pre-flop, betting made the pot total $10.

The flop comes 9-8-2. Rainbow. I am assuming my opponent is not on a straight draw and really has flopped a pair of 9’s with A-9 unsuited. I am in last position.

So I am anticipating that I have 12 outs to win this pot. JJJ, 10-10-10, QQQ, 777.

This would give me roughly a 36% chance of drawing out on this hand in Pot Equity.
And 3:1 pot odds. 12 cards that save me, while 35 that kill me.

With a bet up to $4.30 I will call because I have pot odds.

But with pot equity, I am being told that for every dollar I bet, I only get to keep $0.72 of it in this scenario.

So I have negative pot equity and should stay away from this draw because in the long run I will always lose money on draws with only 12 of 47 outs?

Or does Pot Odds always take precedence in Cash Games?

Well the two concepts are there to do different things.

Pot equity is the equity of the pot, not just your bet. The equity is what part of that pot as a whole you should "get." Regardless of whether you win or lose you "get" that much. The purpose is to focus on the decision making, long term what that play will net you.

Pot odds on the other hand, will tell you the likelihood of winning this hand. The two concepts are used to different ends. The odds will tell you if this one call is going to tell you what amount of the time you win and lose. If you have the right odds you should always call. When you make this call you now have gained pot equity, which really you can use to see what your long term results should be of what you just did.

Combining the two like you did will result in confusion.

It also ignored implied odds, which is important if you plan on doing more than breaking even.

Also you are 1:3 of hitting your hand on the next card. 1:3 is 25%. For every 1x you draw out 3x's you will not. Those two things are kind of the same.

I think you are having a little confusion over terminology, or perhaps I am.

i may be wrong with my numbers but when i learned calculating outs vs odds, theres a basic rule of thumb of 4 and 2. your outs on the flop times 4 equals your % of winning the hand and on the turn you multiply x2. So in this scenario you actually have 14 outs 4 7s 4 Qs 3 Js and 3 10s... 14x4 gives you 56% chance of winning the hand meaning your a favorite regardless of your pot odds.

Originally Posted by mannaconda26

i may be wrong with my numbers but when i learned calculating outs vs odds, theres a basic rule of thumb of 4 and 2. your outs on the flop times 4 equals your % of winning the hand and on the turn you multiply x2. So in this scenario you actually have 14 outs 4 7s 4 Qs 3 Js and 3 10s... 14x4 gives you 56% chance of winning the hand meaning your a favorite regardless of your pot odds.

With the rule of 4 and 2, the 4 rule takes into consideration the turn and river cards.

aka: You will see both cards guaranteed.

If you end up folding the turn card to a strong bet, scare card, etc; then you only end up using the "2" rule since you are only seeing one card.

Pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the cost of a contemplated call.
Pot equity is your percentage chance of winning the pot at any given point in a hand. That percentage is the amount of equity you have in the pot or how much of the pot "belongs to you".

You have to compare both percentage or ratio and evaluate what to do next.
Goodluck.

Rule of 4 only applies if you're seeing flop to river. Otherwise flop to turn and turn to river uses rule of 2, so you only have 28% equity if I'm correct here. Gives you odds 2.5:1 to call the flop bet. You can take some implied odds into the picture, but unless villain is a maniac he wont be paying you off often when you do make your hand

Originally Posted by SwiftHax

Rule of 4 only applies if you're seeing flop to river.

Rule of 4 applies at the flop and rule of 2 applies at turn, so he has a 56% chance on the flop that he could hit by the river and 28% after the turn card.

Originally Posted by shinedown.45

Rule of 4 applies at the flop and rule of 2 applies at turn, so he has a 56% chance on the flop that he could hit by the river and 28% after the turn card.

But that doesn't mean that he will see both cards. There's a 28% chance that the turn will give you a winner, same for the river. If you're seeing both cards (your opponent goes all in) then you have 56% equity as you're seeing the turn and the river. Otherwise, you're only paying to see one card.

Think about it this way, the odds of making a flush from flop to river are 2:1 (33%) but if you're calling a bet on the flop your odds of making a flush on the turn are 4:1 (20%) and you need to have these pot odds to make a call.

Originally Posted by mannaconda26

i may be wrong with my numbers but when i learned calculating outs vs odds, theres a basic rule of thumb of 4 and 2. your outs on the flop times 4 equals your % of winning the hand and on the turn you multiply x2. So in this scenario you actually have 14 outs 4 7s 4 Qs 3 Js and 3 10s... 14x4 gives you 56% chance of winning the hand meaning your a favorite regardless of your pot odds.

This is inaccurate because it assumes every possible card that improves your hand will also win the pot; i.e. that all the outs are "clean". But they're not. For instance, pairing the J or T leaves you behind an overpair, a set, two pair, etc. And if you go ahead on the turn, there are possible re-draws.

Hmm... I may have messed up my last post a bit. Yes, you do have 56% equity on the flop, but when calculating outs you need to use the rule of 2 because you're only paying to see one card which will improve your hand 28% of the time. However if you're calling a bet to see both turn and river then you can use the rule of 4 to calculate your equity and turn it into pot odds.

Interesting question. I too am confused about these. However, I think your equity in the pot is the percentage chance if the hand goes to sd and nothing changes that you will win the pot in the long term.

Eg AA v 72o is c. 88% to win.

Your pot odds are what you need to call to continue.

If the pot is 15 and someone bets 5, you must call 5 to win 20 ie you are getting 4:1 on your call.

Let's say you have AK preflop and there is a 2bet to 3bb from utg 3bet to 9bb from utg+1 you 4bet to 27bb, the utg folds and utg+1 goes all in for 91bb (you have 73bb left) , you are facing a CALL of 73 to win a pot of 204.5bb (0.5sb, 1bb, 3bb from utg, 100from utg+1 and your 100bb. Against AA-KK & AK your AK has c. 39%. Your pot odds are 73: 136 = c. 2:1. so you should call. If you are only against AA (say you saw your opponent's cards), your equity is c. 7% so you should fold.

So...

Equity is your percentage share of the total pot IF it goes to showdown in the long term.

Your pot odds are the immediate cost of continuing in the hand at that point.

If you can make decisions where you are making decisions where you bet as an equity favourite (ie you get allin 51:49%) in a cash game, you will win in the long term.

this can be confusing in deed. let me draw out a recent scenario i had in the blow out series and busted.

i had 7-8 suited clubs and this guy has A-d K-h off suit
im on th BB he calls

the flop is 9-c J-d and 6-c

which is two clubs and a possible straight he goes all in i then calculated that my odds were great so i called possible up and down straight and a flush

the other two cards were a 4-d and Q-h and i busted
so learned that sometimes it is better to fold

I don't know how you come to the conclusion that for every dollar you wager you only keep $ 0.72 of it. Doesn't make sense to me. Yes, your pot equity could be 36% in this scenario. But that just says that you own 36% of the pot, so to speak. When I'm in a situation like this, I rely on the pot odds. You have a strong draw. The pot has already been raised preflop. I think you should therefore call or even raise or put all in. In an unraised pot, I would only call because the pot is too small to play that aggressively.

I am going to "pile on" to all the great dialog here, mainly because I find this subject quite interesting.

Rule of 2 and 4: This is a good simple rule of thumb for calculating the PROBABILITY of hitting the CARDS we seek. If we will pay to see one card we can use 2x the number of outs to calculate the probability of hitting those cards. If we will pay to see two cards then we can use 4x the number of outs to calculate the probability of hitting those cards. This does NOT tell us our equity to win the hand. It is only the probability to improve our hand. Some of these cards are guaranteed winners and some are just better.

Pot odds and equity - the mathematical answer: If our equity to win at showdown is higher than the pot odds, then we can call a bet. Even if we have 34% equity with 33% pot odds. In my opinion, this is only OK in cash games because in the long run the 1% edge will play itself out. In tournaments, we need much more of an edge, because we cannot afford these kind of coin flips in every single hand we play. If we are going to split hairs with this small margin, we better be certain our equity is correct. I personally do not rely on this, especially early in the hand. We should be suspicious about a formula that may tell us to call with 72off.

Pot odds and equity - the practical answer: Is our hand really going to make it to showdown? If we will fold to pressure later in the hand, then we never really had the equity we thought we had. On the river, this is very clear, because there is no further action. But pre-flop or on the flop, there is a lot of poker to play. There are two concepts that describe this further - implied odds, and equity realization.

Equity realization: the idea behind equity realization is to ask ourselves "can we realize the equity we think we have". For example a 72off hand is just as likely to get a 3 of a kind as any other two un-matched cards - even AK. However, this probability applies only to the chances of accomplishing this with 7 cards. So, we may not see the 3rd 7 or the 3rd 2 until the river. Will we call the flop and the turn with a pair of 2's? This is equity realization. The mathematical equity is correct, but we will probably never see a showdown. So 72off has very little equity realization, so calling based on pot odds alone is sort of a disaster waiting to happen.

Hopefully this has shed some new light on this.

Good luck and God bless.

Pot odds tell you how much pot equity you need before calling becomes more profitable than folding.

Note that "more profitable than folding" does not always mean profitable overall.

If you're facing a pot sized bet, you need to win 1/3 of the pot to call. If it's a river bet, that just means 33% raw equity.

If there are future streets things get more complicated with implied odds and equity realization. But at the end of the day, you still need to win at least 1/3 of the value of the pot overall to justify calling.

Originally Posted by messats

this can be confusing in deed. let me draw out a recent scenario i had in the blow out series and busted.

i had 7-8 suited clubs and this guy has A-d K-h off suit
im on th BB he calls

the flop is 9-c J-d and 6-c

which is two clubs and a possible straight he goes all in i then calculated that my odds were great so i called possible up and down straight and a flush

the other two cards were a 4-d and Q-h and i busted
so learned that sometimes it is better to fold

this is a very instructive hand

you have 9 outs for the flush
6 further outs for the straight
6 outs to hit a pair

for a total of 21 outs...twice

according to the cc odds calculator you are a 69 -31 % favourite...wow...56% advantage even against AA....(53% favourite if that includes A clubs)

however this is a tourney...early in the tourney i would call this....later in the tourney, i would hope i would have the patience to fold...but i might well not. It's a tough situation. I certainly cannot fault your decision to call.

in a cash game...it is all in every time...one can just top up, knowing that one made the correct play made on the the maths.

this hand illustrates very well the different nuances between tourney and cash play.

Kinda but you're forgetting about implied odds, I was looking for the part where you say it's a shove but looks like you're asking just to call a bet on a turn. I applaud you for looking into this as I have over played an aggressive draw many a time like the nut flush draw for e.g but you need to appreciate opponents stack if it's worth it to continue