Table mathematics

[Peteyweestro]

I am fairly new still to the world of serious poker and serious poker players and i hear alot of the time about pot odds or table math, and i really am not sure how this figures into the game and playing my hands? I know its gotta be very important and if anyone can explain it it will be the members here at 4 kings that don't just make an uneducated player feel like crap for asking an honest question and for that i want to thank all that respond to this thread!!

[eberetta1]

Table math, generalized rounding while at the game table without a calculator.. like each card I do table math as 2 percent ((i.e. if i hope for an ace of diamond, I calculate in my head 1 card/50 cards in the deck). if i had a calculator and i wanted to know the real odds, 1/52 I'd get 0.0192307 percent.

Pot odds, If there is 1,000 chips in the pot and to go into the pot
I need to call $100. Well, pot odds are 10:1, so if I think I have a better
than 1 in 10 chance of winning this hand, maybe I should call
but if there was only $100 in the pot, and I need to call $100 to stay in,
and my odds of winning were about 1 in 10(an ace King nine is on the board and I have a 3 and 8 in my hand), the payout is not enough to go into the pot.

This might not really help your game, but it will help you understand when people say these terms. It is jargon of the game that reduces what a person says from sentences to a word or two.

Kick some at the felt.

[villaridge]

well, this is a complicated subject. that deserves your full attention and study. Here is the link to scrawnybob's thoughts on this:

http://www.4kingpoker.com/article/87..._in_Poker.html

I suggest u google "poker pot odds" and then you will also soon learn that you better know your hand odds if you are going to use pot odds, and to use that u better learn your outs first, then there is the even more complicated fields of implied odds and reverse implied odds. but go ahead and learn them, if you wanna be a poker player.

The whole field starts out pretty easy. It's based on realizing when the odds are with you, and then betting when you get great odds, and not betting when you dont. Over time, if you follow the better odds for specific hands and situations, you will win more than you lose. This does not mean you will not lose, but that most times you will win over time.

start off by knowing your outs in every hand you play. If you have a pocket 44, and the flop is 8, 3, J, well, your outs are 2, next look at pot odds, say its early in a game, BB is 30, you are button and every person has limped in. the pot would be (on a 10 player table) would be 250 chips to you. It would cost you 30 chips to call, giving you 4.5 to 1 on the pot odds. so you have great pot odds, but you hold [44] and the flop does not contain a [4], the odds of hitting a [4] on the turn is 22:1 (4%). If the turn is also not a [4], the odds of hitting it on the river are again 22:1 (4%). However, the combined odds of hitting a [4] on the turn or river is 12:1 (8%). For mathematical reasons, only use combined odds (two card odds) when you are in a possible all-in situation.

well, what does that all mean? lol, it means you better go learn a lot more about poker. Because while you are figuring all that out, you also need to input blind levels, tournament stage, # of players , position, table image, reading other players, your chip stack size, and, lol, luck. mix it all up and know what to do to maximize your chances to win that hand. The good news is, it gets easier over time, the bad news, it's gonna take a couple of hundred thousand hands and a lotta study on your part.

[hojediade]

Hey,
I have not much to add to that thread in terms of useful comments.
Odds is a part of poker that you can't ignore for too long. I do ignored them for 2 years, and finally decided to learn more about it while reading poker books in my own language.
IMO, when you begin at poker as i done, you don't really need to master pot odds yet. I didn't but i feel like i had an unconcious idea about it which was good enough.
I now need to understand it much better and i keep on working on.
Let's add that the most important part with odds is that it will led you to take or make decisions regards on the maths, so that you can't be wrong anymore while playing as you will adjust your bet/raise to the possibilities and fold your hand when knowing odds aren't good anymore for you.
You won't win every game you'll enter by masterize odds but you'll probably reduce your own bad plays and also your bad beats.

[Peteyweestro]

wow, that was a little bit overwhelming,lol but thanks alot for the fast answers guys

[illphillllllll]

table mathematics is when a donk has a 30% chance of hitting his flush but calls a potsize bet, that is bad pot odds, in the long run you will lose more than you win. a player who raises with position and gets a caller will in the long run win money by firing a post flop bet with any two cards, another form of table mathematics. poker is filled with mathematic situations, you can price out a good player or get extra value off of bad players. learning pot odds is important as a beginner, after getting that down you can start learning EV,(expected value)which is where the algebra you learned in school finally gets put to use.

[IFIWINMONEY]

Is there a way to cheat with poker, no for me personaly. but just in ccase i play with real money, the don't screw me£.

[Alnoble]

Is there a way to cheat with poker, no for me personaly. but just in ccase i play with real money, the don't screw me£.

What an odd post to this thread. You could start a whole thread on it's own on this and you'd get a lot of good opinions but also it would be a magnet for the conspiracy theorists out there with their all sites are fixed.

Using maths in poker is not cheating it using your skills to help make good decisions.

[scrawnybob]

hi

have a look at one of my other sites - badbeatornot.com for info on Poker Odds and articles on basic odds ,implied odds and expected value etc

basically the evolution of a player tends to be ...

1) no idea about odds & probability etc

2) getting a grasp of odds etc and then playing very by the book poker

3) more intermediate technics like understanding implied odds, reverse odds and then betting accordingly

4) then realising that all the additional concepts totally throw out all the basics of odds and outs once you factor in the players you playing

then its sort of back to square one ;-)

cheers scrawnybob

[Peteyweestro]

thanks for that Bob, as it was all seeming really overwhelming but now i see that even after learning all that sdtuff and being a better player on paper the real stuff boils down to luck alot of the time, hence pocket aces losing to rags.So i may be terrible according to some but i think i will stay with my motto i have usec before...75% skill and timing and 25% LUCK.If peeps want to label me a donk because of it then all i can say is "donks of the world unite",lol