Pot odds help...

pot odds are a very important part of a quality poker players arsnal. This is the long and the short of it.

If you are playing ring games then it is really essential that you grasp pot odds as otherwise you will lower your expected value in many given situations.

Pot odds ARE however far less important than some people would make out. Pot odds only really apply when you know what you need to win the hand. Quality reads are important for that. For instance if your opponent has only k high verses your Aqs then the fact that the board is 256 with 2 of your suit is irrelevant in many ways. If he held 34 then it is a different story. I have called HUGE raises in small pots with only an ace high flush draw because I have read my opponent as holding Kx of the flush suit. If I had read him different pot odds would have resoundingly told me to fold.

Far more time should be spent studying common betting sequences than ever is spent on pot odds. This is where far too many mistakes are made. Not understanding pot odds correctly will lead to you making loads of mistakes though that will reduce your profits. Intuitive application of pot odds will certainly lower your EV where there are errors but most people have enough of a sense of pot odds that there are other parts of their game they should be focusing on instead.

There are so many factors involved in tournament play that a player can make pot odds errors and not have the effects immediately noticed. Whilst many people know roughly the odds of flushes and straights (even if they call much higher than the might on the basis of "implied odds" calling all ins in pots with some value with trash can often be correct pot odds wise and this is often forgotten. It is quite possible to win tournaments without correctly applying pot odds - you will just need to be a little bit luckier - thats all.

Moving on to the issue of non instinctive styles of play though...

I sometimes play a "math" game. In everything sub a 100$ buy in it gets you making the correct decisions most of the time with far less error margin and far less drain on your energy than a read/feel based game if you are really studying the board closely.

Key consepts that I would associate with a technical as opposed to an intuitive game are

a) the gap concept
b) start hand requirements
c) implied odds
d) pot odds
e) mathematically influenced tournament strategies - including adapting pot odds for tournaments to encorporate a math influenced true value system.

to list a few

Aside from this you can go one stage further and play a "card" based game.

With this very little effort is put into formulating reads on your opponents and most is put on applying the correct "strategy" to a given hand/situation. Whilst this is not a perfect approach to the game a good system should have you making a small profit which is better than most people manage.

The error factors involved in most people's read based games overway the weaknesses of a more card focused approach for most players.

I am firmly of the view that any two cards are playable but it is kind of like racing a fancy motorbike on a BMX - you might win but only with a lot of effort.