No Limit Holdem 101: Holdem Math Part 4 (Implied Odds)

This is intended to be a series of articles about playing on-line no limit holdem cash games. There will be times where I venture into live poker and times where I venture into SNGs, MTTs, Satellites, and games other than no limit holdem, but for the most part this will target no limit holdem cash games.

For the fifth installment of this series, I am going to tackle one of the most important aspects of poker: math.

When I first wrote this article to encompass everything I wanted to discuss about the math of holdem, it was so lengthy it was almost unreadable. So I’m going to break it into several parts.

The fourth math topic I’ll cover is implied odds.

In “Phil Gordon’s Little Blue Book”, Phil defines implied pot odds as “A calculation of pot odds based not on the money that’s currently in the pot but on the total money that you anticipate will be in the pot at the end of hand.”

In other words you are trying to predict the betting that will happen in future rounds should you hit your draw and should you miss your draw.

Implied odds are complicated and imperfect. You don’t really know how your opponent will react in future rounds of betting, but you must do your best to incorporate your predictions into your calculations.

One key guideline to remember here is that the harder your hand is for opponent to read, the higher your implied odds will be. If your opponent doesn’t think he’s beat, then he’s more likely to put more chips into the pot.

So, what hands have high implied odds and what hands have low implied odds? Sets generally have high implied odds. You hold the pair and the third card is on the board. A set is one of the hardest hands to put an opponent on. Conversely trips are not a high implied odds hand. You hold one card and the other two are on the board. Your opponent will be wary of your bets since he can easily see the pair on the board.

Straights using connected cards from your hand that form the middle of a straight are higher in implied odds that straights using connected cards from your hand that form the top end of the straight. An opponent looking at a board of 589 will not as readily put you on a straight as an opponent looking at a board of 789.

Flushes are generally the lowest implied odds of any hand. It is easy for your opponent to see the three suited cards on the board and react accordingly.

A quick note on a concept I’ve seen called reverse implied odds. The concept here is that if you hit your draw but you still don’t have the best hand, that you will put a lot of chips in the pot when you are beat. For instance if you Have a suited King and make your flush but your opponent was playing the suited Ace. You have bad reverse implied odds because you made the second nut flush and you may loose a lot if you don’t put your opponent on the nut flush.

This is really is a convoluted way of saying what will happen if I was wrong in counting my outs. Be very careful when counting your outs. It usually isn’t wise to chase 2nd best draws.

Well, that’s it for implied odds.

In the next installment, we will talk about putting it all together and making a decision based on math.