Knowing Your Odds in Texas Holdem
Author: Stuart James Smith
Article:
A lot of people think that poker is a lottery but in fact there
is a lot of skill involved in the game. A texas holdem player
needs to know when to play a hand or not and to make this
decision he needs to know the odds of his starting hand winning
or of making his hand if he continues. In Texas Holdem the odds
are calculated by taking into account the number of cards that
are available that would improve a players hand to the amount of
cards left. Once the odds of winning are calculated then the
player can see if the odds available match or are better than
the chance that he has to win the Texas Holdem hand.
To be a winning poker player it is necessary to understand the
pot odds for Texas Holdem and other games. Once you understand
the mathematics then you use them to help you to make the
decisions that will turn you into a winning player. The
knowledge of these Texas holdem odds are especially important
online as there are less opportunities to spot tells than there
are in a live poker environment. It is not usually necessary to
go to the nth degree to work out your Texas holdem odds but you
should have a basic understanding of them and why some calls or
folds are wrong decisions with your drawing hands. For instance
a player who holds a pair of Aces should know that pre flop his
odds of winning the hand decline with the larger number of
people willing to enter the hand. To avoid getting caught out
then it is worth making a raise to limit the field to get rid of
the callers who have virtually nothing but hope to hit their
hand hard. Players that lose with aces against a full table of
callers will often remark that they have had a bad beat but in
reality if they knew the odds then they would realise that their
odds were that they were likely to lose the hand and therefore
it was not a bad beat but more like bad play. These sorts of
plays can be seen all the time and the slow playing of the Aces
against a big field often ends in disappointment whereas the
slow play against a small number of opponents would leave the
player with a huge advantage.
Fortunately you can get some help with your Texas Holdem poker
odds as there are a number of pieces of software available that
can help you with those odds. Now not all software is created
equal so it is best to check with your poker room before using.
Fortunately Poker Stars have made things a bit easier for us and
have published a list of 65 acceptable tools. My favourite
software on the list for calculating Texas holdem odds is
Tournament Indicator. This software will calculate your odds,
track your oppositions playing styles and also tell you what M
you are (see Dan Harrington’s books). This is perfect for the
Sit N Goes or multi table tournaments as it will provide you
with enough information so that you can decide your moves.
About the author:
To find out more about texas holdem odds calculators visit our
poker
odds page and if you would like to play in a poker league
either online or live then take a look at our database at the online poker league
