Expected Value and Implied Odds

A lot of people throw around terms like Expected Value (EV) and Implied Odds. I think this is great when it comes to playing high stakes poker. Poker is more than odds and EV. The lower the stakes you are playing, the less likely odds or EV are even considered part of the game.

This article applies to playing No Limit HoldEm (NLHE). On a table with a $4 buy-in, you will see players with hands like AK-off push $3 all-in post flop. Or against a 50-cent pot, after they missed the flop, also make the same push. You might sit there with a pocket pair or top pair weak kicker. If you used implied odds you would have to fold all day long. EV may be a better way to justify your call, if you look at calling $3 is getting you even money.

This is why I feel all the supposed odds calculators are meaningless. It comes down to what you feel and/or think the other player has. I can see where implied odds may tell me if is it worth investing in chasing down a hand. Yet, on a $4 table, I see no problem calling a few extra dollars just to see what happens.

I see no problem calling a 50-cent preflop raise even if it is 5x the BB, so what. That is the logic you are going against on most of the tables all the way up to $1 BB ($100 max buy-in) and maybe even higher.

Tournament play is a totally different monster. But again, implied odds just have to be thrown out the door most of the time. I do love when someone bets the flop weakly and lets you chase your winning hand down on the cheap, then they attack the river after they let you hit the better hand. That's when they let implied odds work against them. Compared to the opposite situation where you may flop a set and you bet aggressively yet someone calls or worse, goes all-in with a chase. Implied odds tell you to fold here, are you going to fold the best hand every time someone over bets the pot?

My main reason for this post is all the complaints I see in forums about bad beats. The complainer cries about how bad the call was that beat them. They never analyze how potentially bad their play was though. Top pair top kicker (TPTK) falls all day long to flopped sets, straights, and so on. Yet there they are posting their bad beat stories instead of analyzing all the times they misplayed their hands. Bad players know nothing of implied odds or EV that is why it is best to play the players, not the cards.