Calculating Odds and Outs

[msmith379]

I have been working on playing more by calculating my pot odds and my outs on deciding wheter to call bets. I want to make sure my thinking and understanding is correct. Look at the example below and let me know if I am correct.

Two players left. I am dealt As, 4s on the button. Pot is 4k and the flop is Ks, 3s, and 6h. First player to act who has similar chip stack as me bets 1k.

Looking at this flop I have the flush draw. I am getting 5 to 1 odds to call since there is now 5k in the pot. There are 45 cards left in the deck and 4 of the 13 spades are accounted for. The other player could have trips but for now lets put them on a pair of kings which leaves the other 3 A's to help me out. That leaves 9 spades and 3 aces in the deck to help.

So 12 out of 45 for about 4.5 to 1 outs. Even though it is close to my 5 to 1 pot odds the pot odds are better so I would call this bet or do I have my numbers opposite.

Sorry for this being long winded just trying to get my hands around this.

Thanks for the help

[uDevil]

[ QUOTE ]

So 12 out of 45 for about 4.5 to 1 outs. Even though it is close to my 5 to 1 pot odds the pot odds are better so I would call this bet or do I have my numbers opposite.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite. Of the 45 remaining cards, 12 are outs, and 33 (because 45-12=33) are not outs. The odds against making your hand are 33:12 or 2.75:1, making this an easy call.

[Nairb]

I have always used this formula to calculate percentages:

# of outs x4 after flop= win %
# of outs x2 after turn.= win%

With 12 outs after flop you are approximately even money even if he holds a K. I would push over the top of his bet 100% of the time. You are drawing to the nut flush and have 3 aces as possible outs.

You did not mention stack sizes at all which would influence my play here as would any reads you may have but against a random solid player with no pre-flop agression I push here. I am assuming there was no raise pre-flop in your example.

As a straight pot-odds decision you have to call here but I like a push better. If he hits 2 pr your outs decrease to 9 and against 2 pr with 9 outs you are over 5-1 dog drawing to the river for your flush card.

[msmith379]

So looking at x4 after flop and x2 after turn. What is your percentage to still call on? Or what do you look at against pot odds to make you call or fold? On this situation I would be 48% after the flop and 24% after the turn.

[Nairb]

Understand this is a VERY ROUGH way to calculate it, ie not very scientific. I make a lot of calls based on pot odds but in honesty there are so many more factors that pot-odds are only one in a set of considerations as to whether I stay in a hand or not. Stack sizes, my chipstack in relation to one round of blinds and antes(M), payout schedule, reads on apponents, # of people entering the pot in front of me are all considerations I look at in addition to simple odds.

In your instance I come over the top of his bet 100% of the time. If you think he has a K and you have 12 outs you are almost even money going to the turn and you could have the best hand with A high heads up. Pot odds in this case are secondary to the fact that
- you are heads up with A high
- you are drawing to the nuts

Your post only describes the hand in terms of pot odds. Some other things to consider here are:
- Did he raise pf or just call-check
- Table image, has he been loose or tight
- Table image, have you been loose or tight
- has he folded to an over the top raise earlier
- his stack vs your stack

Dependent on stack sizes and your reads it would take a damn good read for me not to raise here. You may be beat but thats poker.

[msmith379]

I was trying to keep the description as simple as possible I have been reading Harrington Books and I was getting confused on how to decide whether pot odds or outs were calcuated and that I was figuring them right.

I have never heard of the percentages before. Is there anything that you keep as a benchmark for the percentages or is more a feel thing and situation by situation.

[uley]

If I understood your question correctly - bear in mind I am very new to this as well - the percentage way of looking at this goes as follows ( I got this out of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book ) he talks about the rule of 4 & 2 that is you take your number of outs and multiply it by four for the turn % - 5 outs x 4 = 20% to make your hand - same thing for the river only use two instead of four. Then he has the formula stating to calculate your break even % you use the formula - BEP = 1/(pot odds + 1 )so therefor if you have a BEP of at least 20% it is correct to call - hope I got this right -

[Jetto]

I hope it is right too.. I use that type of system that gordon taught me

[uDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
I hope it is right too.. I use that type of system that gordon taught me

[/ QUOTE ]

It's correct. It seems overly complicated to me, because you just end up converting the percentages to odds to make a decision. But for whatever reason, some people are more comfortable with percentages, so it's fine.

Percentages and odds present the essentially the same information. They are both ratios, just ratios of different things. If the percentage you make your hand is 20%, that means you'll make your hand 1 time in 5. That is, this is the ratio of the 1 time you make your hand to the total number of tries, 5, on average, that it takes.

You can look at the same situation in terms of odds, where you consider the ratio of the number of times you don't make your hand to the number of times you do. In this case, you won't make your hand 4 times to every one time that you do. You make your hand 20% of the time or the odds against you are 4:1-- same information.

Maybe it's easier to see this stated this way: If you make your hand 20% of the time, you don't make your hand 80% of the time. What's the ratio of the times you don't make it to the times you do? 80% to 20%. 80 to 20 is the same as 4 to 1. So you need 4:1 pot odds to break even.

[CasinoR7]

The rule of 4 and 2 is not an accurate measure, it was designed to make a rough estimate of your chances. The bad thing about this rule is that is assumes that your chances on the turn are always twice as large as your chances on the river which can lead to overestimating your chances on that street.