Archive for August, 2007
August 31, 2007 at 4:27 pm
· Filed under calculator, cards, cash game, draw, gambling, live game, no limit, odds, outs, player, poker, position, post-flop, sit-n-go, strategy, suited, tournament
Another common texas holdem poker hand is the flush draw.
Let’s assume you have a couple of suited hole cards and the flop comes down with another two cards of your suit. You now have 4 to a flush meaning that you only require one more card of your suit to make your hand. This card can EITHER come on the turn OR the river. What are the odds of hitting it?
Lots of people assume it’s 50/50 as there are 4 suits in the deck and 2 cards left to come. By doing a bit of quick math you can see that this is far from correct.
How many spades are in a deck? 13. You hold two in your hand and there are 2 on the board. That leaves 9 unaccounted for. These 9 cards are your remaining outs.
By using our previous formula we can work out that 9 x 4 = 36% which is pretty close to the actual figure of 35% or 1.86:1
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August 30, 2007 at 10:34 am
· Filed under calculator, cash game, chips, draw, fold, limit, live game, money, no limit, odds, online, outs, poker, post-flop, raise, sit-n-go, strategy
In yesterdays post, our example came out at 17.4% for making a straight on the river card. You may be wondering how accurate your calculations need to be. The good news is that you do not have to take a calculator with you everywhere you go! You just have to have a good idea of your poker odds to know whether to bet, call, fold or raise.
If you want a quick and dirty way to work out your poker odds, just take the number of outs on offer and times this figure by two.
This gives an approximation of how likely you are to hit the card(s) you need to make your hand on the river. If you need to work out your poker odds on the turn, multiply the figure by four instead of by two.
Going back to yesterdays example, we have 8 outs on offer. 8 x 2 = 16 so that gives us a 16% chance of hitting in the turn, and a 32% chance (8 x 4 = 32) of hitting on either the turn or the river.
Please remember however that these figures are an approximation and are not deadly accurate. The more outs you have, the less accurate this formula becomes. However, the big plus is that you do not need to be a genius to work out your poker odds.
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August 29, 2007 at 3:52 pm
· Filed under calculator, cards, draw, gambling, limit, live game, no limit, odds, outs, poker, post-flop, pre-flop, sit-n-go, strategy
You don’t need a computer-like brain or a degree in maths to calculate the odds at poker. There aren’t too many hands to worry about. No limit hold em poker is played with a standard 52 card deck. 13 cards in each of the 4 suits. 13 x 4 = 52. You can use this to work out the odds for ANY outcome you like but you wil only need to worry about the the cards you know and the cards you don’t know.
Heres an example:
You hold TJs and the board is Q 9 2. Any 8 or K will make you a straight. What are the odds of the next card making you a straight?
You need a K or 8. There are four 8’s in a deck of cards and four K’s. So you have 8 ways to make a straight. These are also known as your “outs”.
You’ve seen five cards (which are your two hole cards, plus the three community cards) so that leaves 47 unknown cards left in the deck. (52 – 5 = 47).
The odds of you making a straight on the next card are [number of outs] divided by [unknown cards] or 8 / 47, which is 17%
If you don’t make your straight by the turn, the odds of you hitting it on the river are 8 / 46, or 17.4%
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August 22, 2007 at 11:06 am
· Filed under ace, aggressive, bluff, cards, chips, freezeout, gambling, gutshot, live game, mistakes, no limit, player, poker, position, post-flop, pre-flop, raise, sit-n-go, small blind, steal, strategy, tournament
Why? Because it’s rubbish. I’m sat in the £20 freezeout 2pm afternoon tourney at Gutshot in London. Im in late position and it’s folded around to me. I’ve got A2u. The blinds dont seem like they are very interested so I try to steal the blinds. The levels are currently 50/100 so I make it 250 to go. SB calls BB folds. Flop comes down Ace high and I decide to find out where I am and so I bet it. Immediately the SB comes over the top for an all in bet which forces me to fold. Clearly he’s got an Ace with a crap kicker, but his kicker was bound to be better than mine. This cost me a load of chips needlessly all because I decided I would try to steal with A2u.
Don’t try to to make any kind of move with A2u as it’s just not worth it. What are you hoping to see on the flop? If you pair your ace, you have to be wary of someone else at the table with an Ace too. And if they have it, they have you beat, at best you are looking at an unlikely split pot.
Don’t get involved with A2 – it will lose you more money than you can win with it.
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