Over the last few months these articles have addressed the play of those who have no regards for the odds of making a hand. They go in with just a whim and a prayer, hoping their miracle card will come and justify their faith in the poker gods, validate their (horrible) style of play and reward them when in all reality, they haven’t got a snowball’s chance in the theological place of eternal punishment. And punished they are; most of the time – if you are an alert player – you will see a quiet fold at the river because they did not make their draw.
It’s the times they catch a miracle at the warning track that one remembers well. The impossible draw meets Frankenstein and then the monster is loose. The absolute obliviousness – and even defiance – of the odds that make one mutter “If ignorance is bliss, you have got be the happiest person in the entire freaking world.” The fact that the miracle catch was done with you in the pot, with – up to that point – the best hand notwithstanding, the villain will no doubt begin the scooping and stacking of the ill-gotten chips, bragging about how they “…had a feeling it would come” and congratulate themselves on taking all that heat to cross the finish line first.
Of course, the thinking player realizes and knows that whatever reason, rationale and/or feeling (“You sure that feeling wasn’t just gas?”) the doofus puts out, it’s all bovine fecal material. All one can do at that point is admit that “A blind dog finds a bone once in a while” and get on with the next hand. It’s an effort of will to not let something like that get to you, but it must be done; otherwise one might end up going postal at all the doofi in the room…and that might mean every other player for miles around.
So somehow, we must master the occasional bad beat – or time when we’re merely beat bad – and use the odds for our own benefit and advantage. As you no doubt have read in other articles and publications, saving a bet or two here and there can mean the difference between a winning and a losing session. So we return to the odds of making a hand; the knowledge of – mathematically – what our chances of success are and what our expected return might be. Simply put, if your chances of making a hand are three-to-one against you (out of four tries, you’ll fail three times and succeed once) but there is just one or two opponents in the pot, if you win you’ll be paid one times – or two times if there are two opponents – but the odds were three-to-one against you! In the long run of poker, playing those odds of risk versus reward, the odds against you will be a drain on your bankroll. Simple as that. So, what are some of the odds for making a winning hand?
In a previous article we stated that all you need to do is figure the number of outs you have, multiply by two and add two, and you arrive at a close approximation of the percentage number of times you’ll make your hand.
15 outs – usual for a combined straight AND flush draw – results in the percentage of making your hand (with turn and river to come) of about 54 percent. With only the river to come, the percentage of times you’ll make your hand drops to about 33 percent. So if you haven’t made your hand on the turn, the odds of making your hand – and you are drawing to the nuts, right? – drop to one-in-three chances.
Nine outs is usual for a flush draw; with turn and river to come your chance of making the hand is about 35 percent. Again, about one time out of three: With just the river to come that drops to just under 20 percent – or one chance out of five. A straight draw has 8 outs: about a 31 percent chance of hitting on the turn or river and with only the river to come, which decreases to 17 percent.
Use the odds to build – or save – your bankroll. Let the other guy go for the million-to-one chance of hitting. Sure they’ll hit…one time out of a million…but what happens with the other 999,999 times? THAT is money in your pocket. All because you are thinking about poker.
