Champion of Poker

Any professional poker player will tell you how difficult it is to estimate your implied odds when deciding whether to continue in a hand or not. This process is made all the more tricky by playing on the internet where the speed of online poker is substantially quicker than live play. I have observed countless players; even experienced professionals make error after error when attempting to assess the merits of continuing in a hand.

Many authors have written about the subject of implied odds without fully underlining the fact of how difficult a subject it really is. There are many factors at work when attempting to estimate the future size of a pot. For instance, the overall caliber of your opponents will have a substantial effect on any future action that you will receive after you make your hand.

Good players are far less likely to pay you off in many circumstances and the implied odds that you thought you were receiving on the flop may not have even been there at all.

The quality of the opposition is rarely discussed when attempting to debate the subject of implied odds and yet it is by far the most important factor to take into account. Another crucial element in the problem is the type of hand that you are drawing to and how concealed it is.

Flush draws are far more obvious than straight draws and straight draws also differ widely when it comes to how concealed they are. Gut-shots and double belly buster straight draws will drag more money into the pot on average than a far less concealed open ended draw.

When you couple this with the complexity of all the different player types that you will encounter on the poker table, we have the makings of a very difficult subject.

We could easily envisage many situations where two players are in the exact same seat with the same hand, same flop and same pot size. Yet, one may have a relatively straight forward call and the other an easy fold.

I have always been a very keen poker student as well as a very active player. During my studies, I have never been afraid to use concepts and principles from other fields of endeavour that are non-poker related.

I have always believed that if you are flexible in your thinking, then important facts and ideas can emerge in areas where most people would fail to look.

One such example involves the sport of horse racing and the work of professional gamblers in that field. One very successful pro punter who I happen to know personally has been using a very successful handicapping system for years.

Historically, his system has been providing him with very accurate odds for horses in certain types of races. However, he once revealed to me that he will not get involved with a bet unless he has a significant overlay.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson