Brief *******er needed on implied odds in cash NLHE tourneys

I've read about implied odds but the description always confuses me. Since I'm usually tight-passive preflop and tight-aggressive postflop, I need a few tips on how to handle implied odds when 3 or fewer hands (including mine) are left at flop and I'm either betting or calling at least 20% of my stack.

If my question is too general, feel free to ask for clarification.

cc

give me 15 minutes or so and I will give you an answer - it will be a little more general than the question

first things first its easier to understand implied odds dealing with turn - river so I will start there. Second of all it is best in my mind not to look at it in isolation.

Here is a scenario

You have aH3H

The flop is Ac10H6H

Lets say everyone has 1500 chips at the start of the hand. Blinds are 20/40

Preflop Tight Tim Raises to 100 and you call along with 1 other

You are in the BB and you are first to act on the flop. You bet 100 and tight Tim raises you 100. Jason Donk calls and you call as well.

The turn is a nothing card. You check and Tight Tim bets 400 to be called by Jason Donk.

What do you do?
OK 320 in pot on the flop + 600. What odds do you have?

Instantly you will see you need to have a decent read of what your opponents have before calculating odds. Jason could have 2 pair, trips, zilch or a straight or flush draw.

Tight tim has either ax with a good kicker or trips or 2 pair. If you think you need a flush to win the hand then you have 9/44 chances UNLESS you are confident that Jason is on a flush draw (in which case 7/42).

Do you call? simple pot odds would give you 20.45% to hit if you dont put jason on a flush draw for sure.

Thats 400 to win (320+600+400+400+400) - anyway you have comfortable odds for the call.

You might not want to put so much of your tournament chips on the line but you have simple pot odds. It doesnt end there though. If you call and there is no heart then unless there is a card to give you 2 pair you are not going to lose too much more chips. If there is a heart on the river then by either betting or calling you will get EXTRA VALUE for your draw. This extra value is called "implied odds". Lets say Jason Donk was chasing the flush with kx hearts and a heart comes. You are going to get the rest of his chips. That is extra odds. Lets say tight tim realises someone has a flush on the river - though it is out of his charactor he might not call ANY bet on the river if it might give someone a flush. The implied odds that tim gives may or may not be good.

The more people in a flop the better your implied odds will generally be when you hit but you have to realise that you need to know what your opponents have and if you have say 9x on a 10jq flop you might be up aginst ak already (your then drawing 2 cards to tie) or 10k (few outs for a tie etc). Similarly if you have a kx flush draw then if someone has an ax flush draw you will be near drawing dead.

In short Implied odds depend on your reads of your opponents. Generally the more players the better the implied odds BUT you need a better draw to get them or you could find yourself with fewer outs (someone else has a flush) to something that will not even win for you if you hit.

I said before that implied odds cannot be viewed in isolation. The best example is say the flop is

j104 with 2 hearts and you have ax in hearts.
Its a live game and you are sure that the other opponent in the hand has aa. As a result you will only win if you get your flush OR if you bluff your opponent off his cards.

Lets say the turn is 9s. This does not give you a flush or anything useful to your hand but it might enable you to REPRESENT a holding like kq or khqh. If you do this to the right sort of player (a tight solid player who can fold strong hands when they think they are beat) then as well as hearts you have extra cards on which you can represent a hand.

So as well as the implied odds (extra chips off your opponents when you hit) you also have bluffing oppertunities. Generally those who give you good implied odds will not give you good bluffing oppertunities (they will call) and visa versa.

I dont like putting too mucb of my chips in early on draws. In terms of Game theory (an economics concept that can be applied to tourneys) you have to realise that there is an "oppertunity cost" in risking chips on a draw. Often you will lose. When you lose you will have say 1000 chips rather than 1500. This gives you considerably less play and you will get less chips from someone with a double up. OFten you find that the risky player will go down to 1000 then win to get 2000. Whilst the tight solid player gets from 1500-2000 in a few hands but with a much smaller chance of busting out.

Thanks bunches, Ben. I am going to have to come back to your post to review it again just to make sure I got everything.

In the meantime, it seems that implied odds are hard to figure out against an unfamiliar opponent. How many hands does it usually take you to get a comfortable read on someone for those purposes?

cc

nice post , great reading. definitly have to read couple times. well done.

Just to deal with your reply cc - the simple answer is that there is some error margin involved.

When you do not have specific reads on your opponent you rely on what I call population reads. These reads are based on what people tend to do in that particular tournament at that particular buy in. Take a freeroll for example. Often people will not fold top pair to a draw - period. In a 10$ 1 table sng it can be a little different.

In terms of basing it on specific reads all it takes is 1 hand - but it needs to be the right hand. If you see someone making big calls on the river when there are possible flushes/ straights on that is a real big clue. If someone likes to represent and bet on the river big when there are draws on and gets called to show top pair etvc then that is another one.

As a general rule you get more from loose passive AND from loose aggressive than you will from tight solid players.

You are rarely going to have certainty on this though. Say its first hand at a new table. You factor in population reads and conclude that there is a 40% chance that he will call a big bet on the river if you catch. This is still better than a small bet (which he might call 90% of the time) as the average chips from it are much higher.

All you need to do is multiply the amount you would win by 40% and you are there. I do recommend that you UNDER VALUE implied odds slightly. There are two reasons for this a) busting out or really damaging your chip stack is bad b) people often use implied odds just to justify calling when they should fold. If you applied formulae etc and took on board their reads they wouldnt do it but sometimes it is used to justify a play that they shouldnt be making.

Thank you in bunches, Ben.

cc