There are a lot of aspects to math. Here Juicy Stakes Poker with venture into the esoteric world of poker math. Actually, poker math is very straightforward when it is compared to really esoteric math. There will be no curves in the space-time continuum here! We won’t go into the various types of geometry that contradict each other but are nevertheless all “true”.
This will be the start of our study of poker math as the subject is pretty big and players need time to assimilate everything.
What Kind of Math is Poker Math?
Poker math deals with probabilities, odds, and value. We use terms such as pot odds and expected value to help us decide on a mathematically correct course of action. We always tell players to keep in mind that the great poker players of the early 20th century either didn’t use math at all or used it without realizing that they were doing so.
Remember Those Nasty Fractions?
A fraction tells you how much something is out of something. If I have a cake, I can say that I have 1005 of the cake. If we serve half of the cake, we have 50% left. The 50% is the fraction of the whole. Everyone frequently does fractions in their head in some way. If a baseball player is hitting .300, we say that he’s a good hitter because he gets a hit 30% of the time.
If a store has a sale with 25% off, we have a natural understanding of how much cheaper the item will be with the sale. We often are not exact but we come close and have an inchoate understanding of fractions.
Fractions and Decimals
Oh, those horrible decimals!
A fraction can be converted into a decimal and a decimal can be converted into a fraction. We also do this in our heads but only when it is easy to make the conversion. If it is not easy to make the conversion, we stay with either the fraction or the decimal as they were given to us.
Now We Can Talk about Pot Odds
Pot odds is a fractional description of your potential win versus the risk you have to take to get that win. It is not nearly as complicated as it seems.
If the pot in a low-stakes game is $5 and an opponent bets $1, you can win $6 by calling or you can fold. Your pot odds are 6-1 because the bettor before you put a dollar into a pot that had $5 in it. It will cost you only $1 to see if you win or they win.
If you think that you still might have the better hand, your pot odds are very good. If you think that the opponent likely has a better hand, you can still fold even though the pot odds are so good.
Pot Odds are the Same Idea Even in Higher Stakes Games
Here is where pot odds can be tricky. If the pot is $50 and the opponent bets $10, you again have pot odds of 6-1 but you still have to risk the $10. If you feel that you can’t call with good pot odds, you might be playing at a stakes level that is too high for you.
A Good Opponent Will Make a Bet that Gives You Good Pot Odds
Pot odds can be a very powerful tool in an opponent’s hands. If she thinks that she has the better hand and wants to get you to call or raise her bet, she will make a bet that gives you good pot odds hoping that you will be fooled by the favorable pot odds to call or raise her bet.
Pot Odds Tell You How Often You Can Lose to Break Even
If there are a number of hands with 6-1 pot odds, you can lose six times and win only once and you will break even. It could be that you should not have stayed in the hand so you would have less investment to defend. That has to do with hand management before you want to calculate pot odds.
If you find yourself often calculating pot odds after the flop, you might be staying in too many hands that you should have folded before the flop. The frequency with which you calculate pot odds as an indication of whether you should call or fold might point to poor hand play before the flop.
As you can see, the most basic poker math can be very enlightening.
Best Way to Calculate Pot Odds in a Hand with a Big Pot
Most people say that you should round the pot down but it really doesn’t matter if you round up. We think that you should round up if the pot is already close the rounded-up number.
Let’s say that you are playing in a high-stakes game and the pot is, say, $738 and your opponent bets $264. Obviously, calculating the pot odds with these numbers would be hard, so we round the numbers. We round $738 down to $700 and we round $264 down to $250. We add the two numbers to get a pot of $950. So, the pot odds are 250 to 950. It is also correct to remove the zeros so the pot odds are 25 to 95.
Now we have to perform a process we learned way back in grammar school. We can reduce the pot odds to 5 to 19.
How to Calculate Outs
In poker, any card that we have not seen yet is assumed to still be in the deck. So, if you have two pair, the cards that could give you a full house are assumed to still be in the deck.
Now, you have to subtract from the calculation all of the cards that have already been dealt. In Texas Hold’em with 7 players, there are 38 cards left in the deck and you have to assume that a card that you need to better your hand us still in the deck.
It is common for a player to go for a flush or a straight on the river. Going for an inside straight gives you only 4 cards that give you the straight while going for an outside straight gives you 8 cards. If you are going for a flush, you have the number of cards left in the deck minus the four cards you already have for the flush.
Juicy Stakes Poker Goes All in on Explaining Every Aspect of Poker
Here we have begun to get into poker math. Books have been written on this subject so we didn’t expect to cover it all in one short article. There will be more poker math articles to come.
In the meantime, be aware of the great poker play we offer. We have many stakes levels plus a voluminous collection of articles.
