Calculating Odds

Previous articles have shown how a majority of the time bad beats are not bad beats, today's article will show you how to determine your pot odds, so you can make better decisions. Pro players determine this information very quickly, if after reading this you are still struggling, try the 30 day free trial for the magic hold em calculator, you will see a banner on the right.

Calculating Odds To determine the odds against improving your hand on the next card, compare the total number of cards that will not help you to the number of cards or "outs" that will. For example, you hold 7♥ 6♥ with a flop of A♣ T♥ 5♥. On the flop there are 47 unseen cards. Out of these 47, there are nine hearts remaining that will improve your hand to a flush and 38 cards that won’t; therefore, the odds against improving to a flush are 4.2 to 1 (38/9). An open-ended straight draw has eight outs, which is 4.9 to 1 against improving (39/8). An inside straight draw, a.k.a. gut-shot draw, has four outs, which is 10.75 to 1 (43/4). If you don’t improve on the turn and want to know the odds that the river can will improve your hand, the odds will improve just slightly as one more care has been seen. There are only 46 unseen cards on the turn; therefore, a flush draw is now 4.1 to 1 (37/9), which is just slightly better than the 4.2 to 1 odds you had when drawing on the flop.
To determine the probability of improving on the next card, simply divide your outs by the total number of cards left in the deck. For example, the probability of improving to a flush on the next card is 19% (9/47). You will improve to an open ended straight 17% of the time (8/47), and a gut-shot straight 8.5% of the time (4/47). I prefer to know the odds are 11 to 1 rather than the probability is 8.5%, because it is easier to compare to the pot odds you are receiving. Sometimes on the flop, you want to know the probability that either the turn or the river card will improve your hand with two cards to come. These calculations are slightly more complicated. The best way is to multiply the probability of missing on the turn by the probability of missing on the river. For example, for a flush draw you would multiply 38/47 by 37/46, which equals 1406/2162 or .6503; therefore, 65% of the time you will not improve and 35% of the lime you will. [To convert this to odds, invert the percentage and subtract 1 to get 1/.35 -1 = 1.9 to 1 against improving. This section looked briefly at how to calculate simple odds and probabilities; however, calculating odds in your head during a poker game can be quite cumbersome. In reality, all you need to do is memorize the following chart.

Online Poker Sites the Truth behind Them

Author: Tyler James Ellison

Online poker sites proved to be something of a wise investment for gaming companies, the internet in general allowed for much wider audiences to be reached and potentially for the players to play for much longer periods of time. Whilst casinos are contingent purely on visitors actually attending the casino and betting with the rather limited numbers that this will entail, online poker sites allow for entire countries to be targeted which is a significant step up!

Online poker sites also have significantly less overheads than their physical, offline counterparts no need to worry about employee wages, fire hazards, security or any other such issues meaningless costs and hassle for the entrepreneur. Whilst it costs more money, payment processing and the security of the website can be simply outsourced to professionals, again allowing for the entrepreneur more breathing space. What can be plainly seen therefore is that online poker sites are a profitable and worthy investment which with some proper care and due diligence, will net the entrepreneur substantive profits.

Such positive promotion of online poker sites is required, because too many of them suffer rather harshly negative criticism which is often unfounded and unfair. Given the profitability of online poker sites many consumers whether out of natural cynicism or perhaps just being sore losers try and belittle the sites arguing that the online poker sites are rigged so that the house always wins. Despite the best efforts of the companies to allay such fears, the criticism and scepticism still remains.

The ironic thing is that what such consumers fail to appreciate is that because of such profitability the online poker sites do not want or indeed need to try and con their customers. This would equate to a short term gain which would be quickly outstripped by a major loss in the long run. If the online poker sites were found to be guilty of fixing odds and rigging the games, the damage to the reputation and goodwill of the industry as a whole would be immeasurable and would mean a major loss of revenue.

Customers will not be very likely to draw a distinction between innocent and culpable websites, perhaps taking the view that if any online poker sites have not been found to be cheating, then this is a testimony to their cunning rather than honesty. In a bid to quell such fears, the government would no doubt have to step with some draconian, knee jerk reaction form of legislative policy which would be untenable, unjust, and end up being a sledgehammer to crack a walnut solution. Online poker sites want to make money, and plenty of it, so a long term guaranteed result will be much more valuable to them than a short term boost. The last thing the sites want to do is kill the golden goose.

Studies have shown that players at online poker sites tend to lose more often at the tables than in real life, and this is not because of rigged tables or endemic corruption in online gambling. This is due to the reduced inhibitions for the players, rather than cutting their losses, they carry on regardless and so end up losing more money. This is a personal fault, not an industry one.

About the Author:

I'm revealing how to win big at online poker sites and I also share free roulette systems.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Online Poker Sites: The Truth Behind Them