Getting the Right Price Pre-Flop; Calculating Pot Odds PokerLaws.Org

The term “Getting the Right Price” is usually a reference to making a call based upon pot odds. Before the flop it is a little more difficult to calculate pot odds, if not downright impossible. That being said it is less of a mathematical science making this decision pre-flop than it is after there are community cards on the board.

When there are community cards on the board it becomes a very simple matter of determining the number of “outs” that you have and dividing them by the remaining unknown cards in the deck in order to determine the percentage of times that you will make your hand.

By establishing a relationship between the odds that you will make your hand, the amount of money that is in the pot, and the amount of money that you are required to put in the pot to continue to play in the hand, you have determined the “pot odds”.

While you can do this same kind of a calculation without there being any community cards, the decision still becomes, at times, a bit more subjective.

What Are The Implications?

Implied odds are a very important factor at any point in the hand but they are even more important before the flop.

Implied odds are the same calculation as the one that you use for calculating pot odds with the exception that you are adding in to the reward portion of the equation the potential for acquiring additional money in to the pot during later rounds in the play of the hand.

If your hand has the potential to be a really big hand then you stand to win a bigger pot. This is especially true if another player has made a second best hand or if there are a lot of other players in the pot.

How Big is the Party?

In determining whether or not you are going to be getting the right price for playing your hand before the flop, as we stated earlier, you have to consider the implied odds and the more players that are in the hand, the more money that is in the pot, and the greater the potential that there is for even more money to be in the pot before the end of the hand.

You have to always be careful with the way that you play your hand. It is very tempting sometimes to have a lot of players in the hand because you believe that it will make the size of the pot just that much bigger.

The drawback to having a lot of other players in the pot is that there will also be a lot of players that have the potential to make a hand that will beat your hand. Before the flop you want to have more players in the hand when you have a speculative hand and fewer players in the pot when you have a large pair. T

his may contradict what you have previously believed but when you have a strong hand like pocket kings or pocket aces, you want to make other players pay dearly for the opportunity to draw out on you.

When you have a more speculative hand like suited connectors you would prefer to have a multi-way pot so that you will get paid off better in the event that you make your hand.

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