Odds And Calling With Losing Hands

[MikeyInc]

My question is, how do you know if you have the best hand?

As an example, just recently I was playing a hand online and I was holding KQs. It was a 1$ big blind table. There are no raises preflop when it gets to me at the position before the button so I raise 1$. Everyone that was in the hand calls and flop comes 333. Checks all around. Turn comes Q, and it checks all around. River comes K and it checks around to me, so I bet 5$. Everyone folds but one guy, who re-raises me 15$. At this point I'm thinking maybe he has a set of 3's but I felt like it was a total bluff. I call and he shows me K3 off suit and takes down the pot. I'm not really sure if I played that poorly, with 25$ in the pot and I having to call 15$ to win it the pot odds weren't good but I felt like it was a bluff and felt like I probably had the best hand with 2 pair.

I've also read in books and websites things like, "If the pot is laying you 6:1 and your no worse than that to win it, make the call". How do you know if your 6:1 to win the hand. I've seen no clear explination as to what your odds of winning the hand actually are if you don't hold the Nuts. I've seen plenty of examples on your odds of making a draw or improving your hand, but if your not drawing to the Nuts how can you tell what your odds are of winning?

I thought perhaps what was meant by this statement was if the pot is laying 6:1 (30$ in, 5$ to call) and you have atleast the 6th best hand give it a call, but maybe I am just trying to make sense of something I don't understand.

[iceveins0901]

This is NOT a Limit game. That sucks that you didnt raise enough to push out the donkey with K3o. Your first donkey mistake was only raising $1, if you are going to raise, RAISE. Up to $5 or something.

This seems more like a bad beat story. I bet and raise all I could when the turn came Q, you cant be afraid you are against quads ever, at the point of the turn it is 45:1 against him having a 3, right? Bet and raise here every time.

If this is a NL game, you seriously need to raise more preflop, if you dont raise more preflop then you might as well keep playing low level limit, you will always see people chase with incorrect odds and you will lose more hands than you should have, granted it will be for less money, but you will lose more.


As an example of Odds.

There are obviously Pot Odds: The pot is $30 and you have to call $5, 6:1 pot odds, like you said.

Hand Odds: If you are on the draw, an open-ended straight draw on the flop, you can see the 2 cards in your hand, and the 3 on the flop, so there are 47 more cards in the deck, 8 of them complete your straight. So in this example your Odds of hitting your hand are 39:8; or almost 5:1.

If the pot is giving you 6:1 odds on a call and you are only 5:1 to make your hand, in the long run this call will be a winning play.

Say you have to call $5 into a $30 pot with your open ended straight draw. 1 time you will hit for $35 gain and 5 times you will lose for a $5 loss. So you will lose $25 for each of your losses but will gain $35 for your 1 win, resulting in a profit of $10, or +1.67 Estimated Value for playing that draw with those pot odds.

Now say you are only getting 3:1 ($5 into a $15 pot) for pot odds for your open ended straight draw, which we know is 5:1 to hit, so you will be winning the $20 pot the 1 time you win it, but you will lose $5 the 5 times you miss your straight, resulting in a loss of $5 overall, or an Estimated Value of -.83 per hand.

So as we can see from the 2 examples above, you want to play your draws with proper pot odds, because poker is a game of turning a profit, if you are not making profitable plays, then in the long run you will lose money.

(I think the math is right there, can someone check it?)

[liladypokerpro]

Definitely, I don't think raising the minimum was enough. People look at minimum raises as most often times just someone trying to sweeten the pot. Very few players respect a minimum raise, most especially pre-flop. If you like your hand pre-flop, or even if it's just suited connectors like you had, and you're not really sure if you like it or not, go ahead and throw 3x BB out there and see how many people stay in. Then, work with your hand from there. If you'd raised 3x BB initially, I'm pretty sure K3 would have gotten out of the way.

[Vito_Nuccio]

Putting all action aside, no pot odds, not money amounts, I use instinct to determine if I am beat. It comes to me as a gut feeling if I am beat or not in most situations. I take into account odds, reads, player action and more, but in the end after all the computations, I get a voice in my head as to where I am leaning, and that has a good amount of weight into my final decision.

As for your example, the king at the end could have scared you enough to fold to the re-raise, but you could have bet the turn when you made the boat (slow play can be dangerous). By checking you gave the other player a free card and they hit it and then you had to pay them off due to your strong checked turn hand.

Later,

[MikeyInc]

Thanks Guys, Keep the Post coming

[iceveins0901]

As for your example, the king at the end could have scared you enough to fold to the re-raise, but you could have bet the turn when you made the boat (slow play can be dangerous). By checking you gave the other player a free card and they hit it and then you had to pay them off due to your strong checked turn hand.

Later,

Well in his scenario he had the K too, so the turn and river hit his hand