Comment please on Matusow comment re: pot odds "most overrated"

[urnodaisy]

I am a beginner. I would be interested in comments from top players regarding Mike Matusow's comment in Poker Pro Magazine that pot odds are the "most overrated" thing in poker. I thought they were critical to good play. Any thoughts/suggestions? Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my post and helping me out on this.

[JoseGonzlez]

Definitely depends on the context. But if your a beginning online player in shallowish tourneaments there probably is nothing more important than pot odds.

You are just not going to be able to accumulate enough chips in shallow stack big field events if you ever concede a spot where you are getting the right odds to call.

Post flop pot odds are probably not as important eseecially if you dont have a draw. If you opponent bet small to get you to have the right odds than the pot odds are misleading.

So there is alot of different contexts the comment can be taken in. However, in the most basic context pot odds are a different animal.

There are also a few players like Hellmuth Negreanu who have enough skill in manipulating other situations to pass on close gambles but the events are also very deepstacked and maybe they are better at picking up live tells. But one way to easily be a loser in online tourney poker is to play weak tight and pass up spots where you are getting the right odds to call

[Landlord79]

Please notice how much money Matusow loses in online play. His game is read dependent and very aggressive. Math is more important online than live, and reads are more important in live NLHE than online.

[MLG]

if he said misapplied concept I might agree. especially by mid-stakes tournament players.

[Pat Southern]

In deep stack direct pot odds don't matter all that much, but in shallow stack games (like online tournaments) pot odds are huge.

[willie24]

i didn't read the article, and don't know what he meant, but taken literally, the statement you quote is plain nonsense.

saying "pot odds is the overrated thing in poker" is akin to saying "taking measurements is the most overrated thing in chemistry" or "arithmetic is the most overrated thing in accounting."

pot odds are just simple mathematical facts expressed in a way that is useful to the poker player. They are never "wrong" even though the decision you subsequently make may or may not be.