Using Implied Odds Correctly

When I first began to play Texas Hold’em poker I used implied pot odds as a way of justifying calls that were not correct because I thought my opponent might be bluffing. Putting your opponent on a hand and deciding if how many of their chips you can win if you improve is difficult to do, especially for a new player. We never know for sure what an opponent will do, but giving them the correct amount of rope to hang themselves is part of pokers skill.

In No Limit Hold’em calculating implied odds is harder because after the flop opponents usually do not invest a great deal with a bad hand. They have a clear idea whether their hand is any good and because the bet sizes increase quickly after the flop it crystallises their decision making. Like many other things in No Limit, classifying your opponent and understanding their potential range is a big part of deciding on implied pot odds.

Implied odds are about calculating what you may earn in bets in the future if you continue in the hand and improve. It may not be worth gambling for improvement if hitting that card results in zero pay-off. There are many considerations you must make. What hands could your opponent have? What could he think you are betting with? What is your table image? What is his stack size? Opponent dependant, the same spot against two different players could yield very different implied odds.

Let us assume that in a hand you hold Jh-10h and you enter into a pot at blinds of 100/200 with a stack of 10,000. You raise to 600. Another player with the same stack size as you calls from the big blind. The flop is Kh-4h-2s. Your opponent bets into you with an 800 bet into the 1500 pot. The pot is 2300, costing you 800 to call. You have slightly worse than three to one pot odds which is not good for the flush draw. You know, however, that your opponent probably has a King or pocket queens to make this bet. If you believe the opponent will continue to bet if a flush card hit on the turn then your implied odds are good. If you think your opponent will only bet if a heart does not hit your implied odds are bad and therefore you should fold here giving your opponent credit for not continuing to bet in the face of a bad board texture.

Implied odds are not the only consideration in a hand. You should note in the example above that the opponent bet into you as the aggressor which indicates either real strength or lack of appreciation for position. Your information about the opponent whether this is the strength or ignorance of his play will help you make your decision on what to do. Players taking one shot to win the pot then giving up on the turn makes implied odds much smaller and chasing drawing hands more difficult due to the aggressive way online poker usually plays out.

Correct use of implied odds is deciding what you expect to win if you hit your hand. If you expect to win nothing due to the flop, scare cards or the tight style of your opponent and an obvious flush on the board may lean you to make a fold. You normally have more implied odds against loose players or amateur players. Professional tight players do not expose themselves to such leaks and implied odds are harder to manipulate. Put a simpler way, good players are harder to trap into betting when they are behind in hands.

You should consider implied odds as part of your hand reading and opponent classification. It is closely related to value betting and bet sizing. It is the relationship between extracting as much as possible from every winning hand and minimising losses when the expected reward is too small to make the gamble worth it.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: cash games, flush draw, implied odds, online poker strategy, poker draws, poker strategym