Calculate Your Way To Victory

What Are Pot Odds?
How To Calculate Them?

So you are a Beginning player and want to learn something more about your odds? Well, let us congratulate you on making the smartest decision you made in your poker playing days.

That's so because most of the amateur players completely neglect the importance of knowing how to act accordingly to the pot size. It is this that will separate you from the rest, making you a total winner but only if you begin to implement the strategy as soon as you've read this.

Pot – the total amount of money that is at the center of the table, consisting in all the bets made during the current betting round (including the Big and Small Blinds).

Outs – the number of cards that are currently in the deck (including the other players cards, because you have no way of knowing what they are) that can give you the winning hand.

Lets Look At The Example Below:

Your Hole Cards Are:

The Flop Comes Up:

So how many outs do you have now?

Well if you hit either a queen or a Jack you would have a top pair, also if you hit a King or an 8 you would make it a straight and that could easily make the winning hand.

Lets add them together – 4 Kings + 4 Eights + 3 Queens + 3 Jacks that sums up to a total of 14 outs. So after considering that you have 47 cards left in the deck that makes your chances of getting your winning hand about 3.4 – 1.

We found that by dividing the total number of cards in the deck with the number of outs you've got. Or 47/14 = approximately 3.4, if you are not good at mathematics that's OK, just think of how many times does the number 14 fit in 47. Also during a game you wouldn't be able to calculate your odds on a piece of paper so get used to making the calculations in your mind only.

What does the odd 3.4:1 tell us? It tells us that in this situation we should only call or bet if the pot size is 3.4 times bigger than the bet or call we are making.

So if you are playing 1$/2$ limit Hold'em, the pot is 9$ and the amount you have to call is 1$ that makes it 9$:1$ in favor of the pot size so you should probably call or even raise.

OK so you've just called:

The Turn Brings:

What just happened is that you got also a queen high flush draw with that 3 of Diamonds which increased the number of the outs you got. Lets add them up again.

4 Kings + 4 Eights + 3 Queens + 3 Jacks + 7 Diamonds for a flush (exluding the King and Eight Of Diamonds because they have already been added) = 21 outs. That makes your chances 2.2 – 1 which means that you can call or bet as long as the pot size is more than 2.2 times the size of the call or bet you make.

By now you may be asking yourself the question 'Why should I consider the pot size when I make a bet?'. This is done with the purpose to maximize your wins and minimize your losses. See, the riskier the bet or call you make, the bigger the reward should be when you hit a winning hand in order to make up for the times when you don't.

There is much logic in this. If your winning odds are, say – 10:1 and you call a 4$ bet when the pot is 20$, that bet is just one fifth of the pot size, or 5:1 considering that your chances to win are 10:1. There is too much to lose opposed to the reward and winning chances. In this case you should most probably fold.

Remember, the golden rule is – the smaller your number of outs is, the bigger should the pot size be in order for you to participate in the hand.

Poker Etiquette - Act Nicely Please!

POKER ETIQUETTE

TRUTH OR MYTH ?

There are two separate types of poker etiquette as there are two separate ways of playing the game – at a Live Table or at an Online Table.

We will go in to both subjects as they have much in common (after all they both concern the game of poker). What you should know from the beginning is that the main difference is that Online Poker Etiquette is rather simplified in terms that most of your in-game actions will be controlled by the program software the poker room uses, hence reducing the possibility of immoral behaviour.

Lets discuss the most frequently allowed mistakes occuring during a poker match.

At the Live Table:

1. “Slowrolling”. To “Slowroll” means for a player to show his winning hand during a “Show down” waiting for all other players to reveal their loosing hands first. This allows a false sense of security in the other players that might assume that they themselves hold the winning hand therefore resulting in awkwardness and frustration when the winning players flops his cards. This is considered improper because it can slow down the flow of the game and lead to discontent with the other players at the table.

2. Never address or discuss the cards that either you have folded or are still in play while in midst of a hand. This could and most probably will change the course of action of the players that are still in the hand. Also it can be used as an advantage by some as well as being an unfair disadvantage to others at the table. It is thought to be greatly ill-mannered and can lead you to a warning and a later suspension off the poker table.

3. “String betting”. To string bet means to reach back and forth from your stack of chips when placing a bet. This form of placing a bet is considered improper because in many cases it might mislead the player that acts after you to make a move after you have put the first part of your chips as a bet. Doing so it may influence badly their course of play. For example – the player that is in turn after you might think that it is justified for him/her to call the first amount of chips but might not thinks so when you add up the rest of your bet.

4. Acting when out of turn. Try not to rush your game because you can make one of the biggest mistakes concerning poker etiquette – acting out of turn. Please pay attention to the action and follow correctly the turn sequence on the table. No matter how uninterested you are in a certain hand, wait until it's your turn to fold your cards.

5. Not acting when in turn. While you are still in a hand you have to concentrate, because getting carried away with your thoughts can easily result in, being reminded to act constantly by the others at the table. This will lead to the frustration of the rest of the players sooner or later. Also be certain to follow responsibly the actions of your opponents so that you don't have to ask too many times questions like “How much is the raise?” and “Is it my turn to act?”.

6. Being rude and offensive. No matter how frustrated you are with the outcome of the game or the actions of another player, you most certainly should not make rude and offensive remarks about the style of play of others or even worse remarks of personal nature. You should realize that everybody has the right of choice – after all it's their money that they are playing with. A violation like this will surely result in you being removed from the table.

7. Splashing the pot. Many new players make this simple mistake. To splash the pot is to just throw your chips chaotically on the table. This could cause quite a headache for the dealer especially when playing in a pot sized bet poker game, because this would make it a lot harder for the dealer to calculate the pot size. This results in slowing up the game pace and in general discontent. It is greatly less troublesome to collect a well organized pot consisting of a few stacks of chips.

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Online Poker Table:

As was said before online poker etiquette has been significantly simplified due to the boundaries the computer software sets. Here we will display just two mistakes that aren't identical to the live table game ones and which are solely identified with playing on the net.

1. Having a bad connection. This could be as frustrating to you as to the other players on the online poker table because it will notably decrease the game speed causing discomfort to you and your opponents. Try and optimize your connection by closing all other software applications that may interfere use large portions of your internet traffic. The poker software program for most of the online gaming sites will give you a generous amount of time to reconnect, but using this privilege too often will be treated as bad poker etiquette.

2. Do not misuse the purpose of the chat box. The chat box is designed for light unengaging conversations – after all you are there to play poker not distract yourself and the others with irritating insinuations about the qualities of yours or your opponents' poker play. Most certainly you should not discuss your folded hand while the duration of a certain hand. You should know that the ability to chat whilst in a online poker is not unconditionally given to you. There are moderators and administrators that will take your permission to chat if you abuse the system and the game.