« Vacation Begins | Main | It's A Hard Knock Life »
 | |
| Latest poker news |
August 15, 2005
Implied Odds
In my original post about FTR I said that it could sometimes be correct to fold after you raise and it gets capped back at you but that you should never fold for only one more bet though in both spots you are getting 5-1. Some people wanted to know why. The answer is implied odds.
Let's consider two hypothetical hands. In the first hand you raise first in from middle position and the blinds reraise and cap it back at you. In the second we'll say there is no small blind, you raise first in from middle, and the lone big blind threebets you.
In the first hand you put in two bets, the first raiser put in three, and the big blind put in four, for a total of nine. However we have to assume the small blind will call the cap, as I've never in my life seen anyone fold in that situation, giving us 10-2 odds, or 5-1. In the second hand you put in two bets and the big blind put in three, so again you are getting 5-1.
The primary difference is the implied odds. Let's assume that in both cases you have some hand where you will either hit the flop and make another ten bets or you will miss the flop and fold. In the first scenario there are already ten bets in the pot so if you figure to make ten more when you hit your total implied odds are 20:2, or 10:1. In the second scenario there are only five bets in the pot, and you figure to make an extra ten when you win, so your implied odds are 15:1.
This is a drastic oversimplification but it does illustrate a point, which is that there could be cases where a hand could be unprofitable in the first situation but profitable in the second. Perhaps the hand you hold is a 12:1 dog to hit. Then it would be wise to fold for the cap but call for one more bet.
Generally once you raise you will call either one or two reraises. I think that the FTR advice "If you raised first, and it gets 3bet and capped back to you, muck your hand unless you hold the goods. Treat this as if you were cold calling," is terrible because you are getting much higher odds than you would be if cold calling. But there are rare times when you could do it because sometimes, after you account for all of the other factors I left out, a hand just isn't profitable enough to call two more bets with.
For instance the other day I opened late at a full table with K7s and two tight players capped it back at me. I just went ahead and folded because of the high chance I was dominated. If I flopped a king I would be in some trouble against a better hand and wouldn’t know where I'm at. And even if a 7 high flop came there would be a good chance somebody had a higher pair.
Actually I turned out to be against KQs and JJ, which is horrible for me but not at all unexpected. I'm something like 8-1 against there, but evcn had I somehow been getting 8-1 odds I probably still would have been correct to fold since I'm likely losing money, on average, after the flop. The flop, of course, came 7 7 2 and I would have won a nice chunk, but that is beside the point.
In the same situation against merely one reraiser I would have to call. For one thing I'm far less likely to be dominated. One reraise shows a lot less strength than a reraise and a cap. And my odds of beating one opponent are far better, on average, than those of beating two. Unless my opponent has KK I can't be much more than a 5-1 dog. In fact that's about exactly what I am against aces, against anything QQ or worse I'm far better off. Even against AK I'll win 30% of the time. For pretty much any reasonable range of hands I can give my opponent there I'm significantly better than a 5-1 underdog. And playing against one opponent after the flop is easier, and more profitable, than playing against two, so I'm likely at least break even in post flop play.
I suppose there could be situations where it could be correct to raise and then fold for one more bet but you would really have to know your opponent. If you raised A 6 off and knew with 100% certainty that your opponent would only threebet you with aces then I guess a fold would be in order. In reality though situations like that don't occur often, and never happen online. I've never been in any situation like that in all of the time that I've played, but I suppose it theoretically could happen in a casino if you had played with someone long enough, but you could never know anyone well enough for that to occur online.
Posted by themaroon at August 15, 2005 12:45 PM
Comments
In your implied odds situation, you projected to make another 10 bets should you hit the flop with two other players. Don't you feel that where you face only one other player you will make a proportionally lower amount of bets in this case for simplicity we can assume you would make 6/7 bets and not the initially projected 10 bets. (this would still just about bring your 12-1 dog in though but very tightly)
Posted by: TheBeloved at August 15, 2005 2:21 PM
Well, as I said it was intentionally oversimplified. In reality you probably would win more against two players when you do win, but you would also lose more when you do lose. Not many hands are as simple as "hit the flop or fold", and the few that are (maybe pocket threes, etc.) would be an auto call with 5-1 odds (the worst you could ever have) anyway since.
It's harder to play against two players than it is against one. That and the extra losing when you hit a second best hand sort of balances out the extra winnings in practice.
Posted by: Matt at August 15, 2005 4:14 PM
did your opponents take that hand to a showdown? i'm curious as to what they held.
Posted by: eric at August 16, 2005 8:45 AM
Howdy,
I linked you up to my blog. Would you mind adding mine? Christian Poker Imacrazynutjob.blogspot.com
Posted by: Bryan Black at August 16, 2005 11:09 AM
Hi, I enjoy reading your blog, I'm also a member of the FTR forum, but I only play NL MTT's so can't really comment on the limit advice being given. From what you say it seems like this advice is incorrect. Although a lot of the posts can be immature on such chat forums, I am sure people from FTR would appreciate your strategy advice.
Posted by: Richard at August 22, 2005 5:07 AM