Action Junkie Intervention
Let’s talk frankly about implied odds. Call this an implied odds intervention, if you will, because many of you out there and you know who you are) are addicted to the concept of implied odds. Addicted because the concept allows you or gives you permission to play more hands, make looser calls, and in general give more action. You are an action junkie and implied odds are like the syringe that delivers your drug to you. So let’s start at the beginning by defi ning the concept of implied odds.
Implied odds are odds on your money that will occur in the future. Basically, the idea is that when we make some calls in poker we can also include in our calculations the money our opponent will pay us on future betting rounds when we make our hand. So when determining whether or not a call is correct in terms of the money in the pot compared to the money we must pay, we can consider money our opponent(s) will pay off later as part of the pot. Imagine we are in a situation where we are drawing to a fl ush and we know we will only get to see one card. To break even on the call the pot needs to be laying us about 4 to 1. For every $1 we call there needs to be $4 in the pot. Let’s suppose we are only getting 3 to 1 on the call, that there is $300 in the pot and we have to call $100. If time stopped right there the call would be a losing call. In fact, we would lose 20 cents of every dollar we put in the pot under those conditions for a total of $20 of the $100 call. But what if we are sure that when we make the fl ush our opponent will be willing to pay off $200? Then we could add the $200 into consideration when calling the initial $100. We know we are losing $20 on the call. But we also know that 20% of the time we will make our hand and our opponent will pay us $200. That means the future equity on the payoff would be $40 (20% of $200). Obviously, $40 is greater than $20 so the implied odds pay for the equity loss we take on the immediate call.
Okay. So implied odds is a concept that allows us to accept a poor mathematical proposition right now because of suspected future earnings. We can lose a little money now because we will sometimes make more money on a later street. Great. But the problem is that players overuse this concept to justify bad play. They excuse calls that they know are bad by an over reliance on the implied odds concept, a habit that will cause them to play much too loose.
The greatest example of this comes from small suited connectors. I suspect that almost everyone who plays these hands regularly is bandying about the implied odds concept. “I love baby suited connectors because when you make your hand you can get paid off big.” I am sure you have heard people say that. I suspect you may have said that yourself. But here is what I don’t understand, how can there be implied odds if you are rooting for your opponents to fold? Let me explain.
You are playing a hand like 6s 7s and the board comes Ks 10s 2d. You are in a multiway pot. The action goes: you check and there is a bet, call, and call back to you. Let me ask you this. You are probably overcalling here but are you really happy about it? I mean the texture is pretty damn obvious. At this moment in time does it cross your mind that someone else might have a fl ush draw? Even if it goes bet and one call in front of you, doesnft this concern you with such obvious texture on the board?Okay, so you call and now the turn is the 3s. Yippie! You made your hand. So you bet out (you have to since a free card isnft an option). Stop and think for a moment. Are you really rooting for action here? If someone moves in on you, are you happy? Even if someone just raises you, are you happy? I suspect not because that creates a very diffi cult decision for you. You are in a multiway pot with obviously completed texture on the board and you just got your ass raised. That is ugly. Even if you just get called you are not thrilled. You may very well be beat (especially if called by more than one player) and even if you are not the board will come another spade 20% of the time and will pair over 20% of the time as well. All of those cards create very ugly decisions for your 7-high fl ush. If you do get called and no disaster cards hit the river it is almost always correct to check and hope you are just inducing a bluff. It is unlikely a worse hand will pay you so you check and cross your fi ngers. You will call a bet but it is not a happy day when an opponent is willing to bet the river on a completed board.
Do you see the problem here? When you bet that turn you are actually rooting for either a fold or just one caller. The nightmare is more than one caller or getting raised. And even the one caller is not the happiest of events. The problem for the hand is that in a multiway pot where texture completes like that, hands like top pair will be reluctant to pay off. If the action comes right, sets can even get away. So one pair becomes a somewhat easy fold in these kinds of pots.
So now I can ask you the important question: How can there be implied odds if you are rooting against action? Isn’t the very defi nition of the concept that you are hoping for action on future streets? So you justify your ridiculous call with the 7-high fl ush draw by saying you might be getting the wrong math now but the implied odds are huge. Except you hit your hand on the turn (and the turn is the only street you can hit it on because there is always a bet on that street when you miss) and now you are rooting for everyone to fold and for you to just take the pot right there. I can almost hear the implied odds line rationalizing the overly loose play but I don’t know how when you actually don’t want any action on later streets. That becomes absurd. Chew on that one for a while.
