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 Pot Odds in Texas Holdem Tournament Style Play Online or Off.
Figuring Pot Odds is a very vital part of playing Texas Holdem poker no matter if its an online tournament or a live game. What does pot odds mean? Basically it is the amount of money in the pot and how much money you have to contribute to win the pot and what are your chances of winning.
Lets look at a basic pot odds example that happened in a tournament I played in locally. The blinds were fairly high we were in the mid to late stages of the game. Blinds are 500/1000 I have about 30K in chips my hand is 79 off suit and I am in the Big Blind. The guy UTG raises to 5K Second position calls and another caller in late pos calls so now we have 16500 in the pot it cost me 4k to take a shot at winning 16500 those are 4 to 1 pot odds which are great odds for me. I call not so much because of the great hand I have but because the pot odds are good. The flop comes 257. The UTG guy bets 5k leaving him with 8K. Everyone folds to me. Well since I have way more chips for one and second most raises by this guy have been with hi cards I re raise him all in. He calls with AK another 7 comes on the turn and the river is no help to him I take a huge pot.
This is an example of a typical pot odds play. The guy on the other end could not believe it. For about 20 minutes he was running around the place going I cant believe that guy called me with a F in 79 off suit. He did not understand the pot odds play I made. One other advantage of making these plays is that it will confuse the other players. I herd people say don’t steal his blinds he called with a 79 off suit while ago. So there are two good reasons to make these plays one is too vary your play the other is to play hands when you can win a big pot with a small investment.
A good way to look at pot odds plays like this is to think of them like stocks. You have your real stable stocks like Disney, Wal-Mart or Microsoft. These stocks are very stable kind of like playing AA, KK, QQ which are powerhouse hands. Now a 79 off suit with good pot odds is like penny stocks. It’s a volatile stock that is cheap but if it hits you make big money on a small investment. You invest 50c and buy a couple of hundred and in a few days the stocks go to 2.50 bucks you just made a killing with a small investment and quadrupled your money.
Now Pot odds also come in to play in online tournaments or live tournaments after the flop hits. If you have drawing hands you will need to consider your pot odds and if you hit top pair and there are straight or flush draws out you need to bet to deny the proper pot odds. Generally to figure out pot odds on drawing hand you need to figure out how many outs you have and then consider what the pot is offering you. There is also another thing to consider called implied odds. Implied odds basically means that what you can expect to win when you make your hands. Lets say there is 3500 in the pot and your opponent has 4000 more in his stack you have a feeling that he will go all the way with his hand and you have a good shot at drawing at the nuts. Then the implied odds are that you will take the 3500 in the pot plus the 4000 remaining in his stack. Some people will try to draw out against pot odds and say the implied odds were good. This is not always true. You need to have a read that says your opponent has a strong hand he will not relinquish. Something like he has two pair and you are drawing at the nut flush or straight and you know he is going to go all the way then your implied odds are good. However if you are dealing with a player that can lay that down if he thinks he is beat you don’t have implied odds anymore. Implied odds basically are what you think is going to go in the pot.
This is basically how pot odds effect online poker tournaments as well as live cash games and poker tournaments.
For more on pot odds and implied odds join our poker forum.
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