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Knowing the basics of poker mathematics will do us no good whatsoever if we don’t know how to use that knowledge. Hopefully anyone reading this has read the first three parts of my poker math series. If not, you may want to do so before you continue. I’m going to present this “lesson” part of my series in the form of steps: Counting Outs, Starting Hand, Choose to apply.

Counting Outs

If you count your outs (the number of unseen cards that will give you the best hand) and multiply them by two you will come up with your approximate chance in percentage of hitting one of your outs on the next card. It’s actually a bit more accurate to multiply your outs by two and then add one. When chasing a flush draw you have 9 unseen clubs left in the deck that will give you the best hand. 9×2=18+1=19. You have about a 19% chance of hitting a club on the next card. 19% is about 4 to 1 odds. 20% is 4 to 1 exactly. If 20% of the deck will make you a flush, the other 80% won’t. 80 to 20 is the same as 4 to 1. In our example, I said that I was estimating conservatively, and that’s because I’m only counting the cards that are sure to give you the best hand. You also have the aces and kings in the deck that would give you top pair top kicker. There are actually three more kings and three more aces that may be outs. Depending on how tight or aggressive your opponent is, you might count those as ½ an out a piece. Your opponent could have a hand that is beating top pair, counterfeiting your kings and aces as outs. That’s called discounting outs, I’ll address it in more detail later in this series.

When drawing, it’s important to remember to compare your chances of hitting your hand on the next card alone to your current pot odds when deciding if you should draw. That’s because, if you call and miss your hand you will likely be facing another bet on the next card. I’m surprised how often a player will call a large bet on a draw when they have two cards left, then fold to the same bet if they miss the first card. The, somewhat fuzzy, logic behind this is in thinking that they have a good chance to improve with two cards left and then folding when they miss the first one. The truth is, of course, if you were going to fold your hand if you missed the turn then you didn’t actually have two cards to begin with. More often than not the pot is actually offering better odds after the turn then after the flop. My point is, simply, that you must take poker one decision at a time. The only time you should weigh your odds of hitting an out with two cards coming against the pot odds is when one of you will be all-in after the flop. When that’s the case you can go ahead and assess your chances of hitting your hand with two cards to come and compare them to the price the pot is laying you. And the easy, and approximate, formula is (again) your outs X2 + 1 per card.

Let’s go thru another example; let’s suppose you’re in a $5-$10 limit hold ‘em game. The blinds are $2-$5; you call in first position with 6c6d. Your call initiates a string of calls, then the dealer button raises. Everyone calls the raise so the pot contains $60 and is being contested by 6 players. The flop comes Ad 5h Tc, no help to you. With two over-cards to your pair you have to assume you’re beaten. Everyone checks to the dealer who bets out $5. Action folds to you, what should you do? Well let’s do some math. The pot is offering $65 to $5, which is a huge price, 13 to 1. You can figure to have two outs in the deck which only gives you about a 5% chance of hitting. You actually need about 19 to 1 to call here. 5% converts to 1 chance in 20. 1 chance in 20 converted over to odds becomes 19 to 1 against. Even if you count the implied odds (the bets you’ll collect after you do make your hand), I’d say this is a fold. Some players might call the bet thinking that they can make a lot of money with the set if they do hit it. While the math might indicate that it is at least close to a call, you also have to consider that there are more players yet to act and any of them could put in a re-raise making it more expensive than you anticipated to continue to chase your set. All things considered, this is a fold.

Starting hands

Many of the hands that are playable when the blinds are small diminish in value as the blinds increase. For instance, most players value JTs over K3o when playing No Limit Hold ‘em, however, king three off suit is actually a favorite against jack ten suited in an all-in confrontation. The appeal of “speculative” hands such as KQs and suited connectors like JTs comes from the hands’ “post- flop” playability. Hands like AXs and small pocket pairs are valued in cash games and early in tournaments because of their “implied value”. The hands are easy to play after the flop and have the potential to flop monsters. When you strip away the post- flop play, such as when a tournament gets to the final stages and the blinds and antes inflate, few players really understand the transition that occurs in hand rankings. Hopefully, this article will give you a bit of the insight that all the top tournament players use to finish at the top.

The information I’m about to share has a great deal of practical application, most of which we will not discuss here. After reading this article and setting a few basic ideas to memory, you will be able to determine the win percentages of any two starting hands instantly. Sound hard to believe? It’s a lot simpler than it sounds. There are tons and tons of two card combinations and setting to memory the exact percentages of every match up would be nearly impossible. All of these match ups can be grouped into 8 simple categories and you can know within a few percentage points exactly what the numbers are for every conceivable combination just by remembering these eight match ups.

Choose to apply

Imagine that you are on the dealer button with AKh (ace king of hearts) and everyone folds to the player to your immediate right who raises to 60. You re-raise to 180, total. (That’s what we do with big slick on the button right? Right!) The blinds fold and the cut- off seat (the player one to the right of the dealer) calls your re-raise. The flop comes; 9h 3h Qs. The cut- off player bets 110 chips into a 390 chip pot do you…

• a) raise
• b) fold
• c) call

The pot contains 500 chips and will cost you 100 chips to contest. You’re getting 5 to 1 on your money and are only the odds are only 4 to 1 against you making the nuts (as long as you still have chips in play, the odds should be considered one card at a time), not to mention any ace or king might give you the best hand. This is a clear call. The aggressive way to play the hand might even be to re-raise as a “semi- bluff”. A semi- bluff is a bet designed to take the pot down uncontested but that has potential to turn into the best hand if it does happen to get called. Sometimes a player who is not sure if there hand is good will make small “information” bets fully intending to fold if they are raised. That might make a semi- bluff the best play. If I’d played with this particular player before and I’d seen him make small bets for information or as bluffs, I’d raise. In this example we don’t have any information to go on so our default option should be to take a cheap card and see if you hit your hand. The biggest problem with raising is that it would give our opponent a chance to re-raise and put us to a difficult decision, perhaps for all of our chips. We’ll go ahead and leave the difficult decisions to our opponents if we can.

Hope these tips will do you good. Best hands will be in your hand, place these out in your game at Party Poker. For more reading, go to Online Gaming Guide.