Is the severity of a poker mistake directly proportionate to the odds?

[defence18]

I was just thinking while scanning the forums and this thought occured to me. I was wondering if someone could shed some light on it. When you make a mistake in poker, do the odds you are getting affect the severity of the mistake? For instance, if, holding the nut flush draw, you are faced with a bet in NL Hold 'Em against a short stack that gives you 1.5:1 odds and you call, is this better than calling when you are getting 1.25:1? Let's assume that only your flush is good, say you're opponent flopped two pair. Thanks.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The severity of a poker mistake is a function of how often you make it. Thus, as SSHE points out, if you were to fold every time you flopped a royal flush, that would be a very tiny mistake. However, if you always call raises preflop from MP with hands like KJo, QJo, JTo, that is a HUGE mistake.

[_TKO_]

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For instance, if, holding the nut flush draw, you are faced with a bet in NL Hold 'Em against a short stack that gives you 1.5:1 odds and you call, is this better than calling when you are getting 1.25:1?

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It's less bad.

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The severity of a poker mistake is a function of how often you make it.

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True, but it's also a function of the size of the mistake. Ed's example with the royal flush is a large, but infrequent, error. Routinely calling preflop raises with hands like KQo, KJo, JTo is a small, but frequent, error.

Let's say you play otherwise perfect poker, but always call a raise in MP1 with QTo and 83o. Each of these hands occur equally as often, but always calling with 83o is a larger mistake than always calling with QTo, as it is harder to make up those bets.

In the OP's example, the opportunity to make each error probably comes up about the same for each, but it is a larger mistake to call with 1.25:1 odds vs 1.5:1 odds, you have to make up more bets in the long run to compensate. Both size and frequency determine the magnitude of a mistake.

[smbruin22]

yes, if you make a bad call on the turn vs. one opponent, it is LESS BAD to have MORE $$$$ in the pot?

i didn't mean that to be funny. better odds = smaller mistake.