How much math do you apply to your game? i am jsut wondering if you play feel based or on odds? I tend to play feel but I know the math and it is always a consideration when in a hand. How do you apply math if at all to your game is my question.

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"You will succeed far more by capitalizing on your opponents mistakes than you will by the greatness of your own play." --- I am not sure who said this but it is a great quote and piece of advice.


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I am constantly counting bets, I do it almost religiously. for example, pot is raised, 5 players are in and i"m the small blind, and action is to me so I'm getting 11 to 1 (5 players x 2 bets + small blind, the small blind in the game I play in is actually 2/3rd of a bet but for simplicity I round up as it is only one chip) I also take into account that the big blind is highly unlikely to fold in this spot so I'm really getting close to 12 to 1 to call. And then just keep counting the bets on the flop action, when you get to the turn, just divide the number of small bets by 2, and you know how many big bets are in the pot for the turn and river to give you the pot size

I don't use math as much in determing my starting hands, I tend to play more by feel and situation, depending on the type of game, type of players, how passive or aggressive the games is, etc. But I definitely keep track of the pot size at all times.

Jason

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I'm Not Lucky, I Have Good Karma !

Thanks for the reply.

I generally don't use math when deciding starting hands either I generally play position and adjust depending on my opponenents. As far as post flop I generally use odds when in a tough spot and occasionally to decide on wether or not I want to bet my draws or call with them. Basically the only time I "rely" on math is when drawing. I put "rely" in quotes as I don't really "rely" on them, just use them as another deciding factor in tough spots.

__________________
"You will succeed far more by capitalizing on your opponents mistakes than you will by the greatness of your own play." --- I am not sure who said this but it is a great quote and piece of advice.


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I think poker decisions are made in layers. The first layer is the math and the odds, basically the information that a software program could provide you. This is the foundation of winning play and should probably be the first thing you think about when making your decision. The next layers are position, opponent hand ranges, reads and tells, betting patterns, etc. When deciding on a call, I like to figure the math answer out first and then apply to other layers of thinking on top of that to make my decision.

I have never thought of it this way... Very interesting!


Good post!

__________________
"You will succeed far more by capitalizing on your opponents mistakes than you will by the greatness of your own play." --- I am not sure who said this but it is a great quote and piece of advice.


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I do math when I am drawing but once i get to the river the math is over. Pot odds do not exist much if you are beat. You are either beat or your not.

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Kickboyswoop

Even on the river you can use math to help you. For example, if you think that the hand that beats you makes up only 25% of the guy's range given the betting, you could decide that in this situation you win 75% and lose 25% of the time with a call. You can still figure out odds to call. If villain makes a huge bet on the river,however, the math sort of blows up and you have to follow your gut. Once again, even if the math of the call makes it correct, you can use your reads, the stack sizes, stage of tournament, betting patterns, and gut feelings to swing the pendulum towards the correct decision.

Odds do matter on the river. I play mostly limit poker and the odds on the river usually make calling correct, espescially in mulitway pots.

__________________
"You will succeed far more by capitalizing on your opponents mistakes than you will by the greatness of your own play." --- I am not sure who said this but it is a great quote and piece of advice.


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i think that i would like to know more about the mathamatical part of poker, but when i started to play poker i really didn't know that poker was about math. i always have been good at math so it has been easy for me to make the conection but i still play poker more on feel. I will alway have the math to maybe make a better judgement but i sometimes think that the math can be off when you talk about commitment to a pot, especially in a tournament.

You did bring up a point about math in tourneys. In tourneys math is less relevant. I will not say it is completly useless, but much less so than in a cash game. In a cash game the math is there to justify close calls that you know to be correct as over time if you always play the math the same, you will profit from making that play. In tourneys the math is still there, the long run is what has gone away so that math is much less relevant. This is why I think cash games are where the true sill lies and tourenys are all about short term luck. Does this make sense?

Here is where we have discussed calculating pot odds on the site before How to calculate pot odds

Note that the original post has the right idea but the math is wrong. Read down and I posted a link to Lou Kreigers article "Pot Odds Made Easy" which is a great article that explains odds (I would have posted the link here myself but websense blocks the URL from me when I am at work).

PoWdas link added by Good Karma Kid: Pot Odds Article by Lou Kreiger

I hope this helps.

__________________
"You will succeed far more by capitalizing on your opponents mistakes than you will by the greatness of your own play." --- I am not sure who said this but it is a great quote and piece of advice.


Colorado Players Click Here