Mathematics of Winning Poker Plays

[admin]

Mathematics for Winning Poker Plays

I’m sure you will want to learn Math if you want to get serious playing poker. Math has great bearing in your success as a poker player. If luck needs to be on your side to win in poker, then Math should be your companion if you want to play really skillful poker.

It does not take too much mathematical computations to be a great poker player. After all, poker is fast-paced game and you can’t be spending all of your time doing calculations in your head. What is required is that you practice calculating before you approach a poker table. This way, your responses would be instinctive – in your practice sessions, you’ve already done the Math so, at the actual table, what you’d really need to do is apply what you’ve learned.

Pot Odds Broken Down

The formula requires two games of chances or odds. The first odd that you need to calculate is the likelihood of you getting the hand combination that you need to get. This should be basic to any poker player. What this means to you in simple terms is that you need to determine what your chances are of getting a set of cards that will give you a winning hand – say, a straight draw or a flush.

To calculate the odds of this happening, check out your pocket cards and flops and see what type of card you need to get your desired combination. After you’ve figured this out, you’ll realize that there are 4 kinds of cards for each card you would require, so now you have what is labeled as out cards. You basically get a ratio of the cards in the deck that could make it work for you versus those that won’t.

We move to pot odds now. You simply get the ratio of the total pot amount versus the amount you’d need to add to that pot. The higher these odds are, the more attractive the pot since you can conceivably earn more money.

Now, compare these two ratios that you have just calculated and if the pot odds turn out to be higher than the ratio for the cards you need, by all means, bet. If the next player adds more money to the existing pot, the pot would become even more attractive to you. However, if the bets have been raised, then it would be more costly to remain in the game.

Like all other strategies, pot odds require patience and practice to get this thing going for you. Learn it then start using it to improve your game plan.

Ha I like this. I hope you can put more thing like this out. I wont to learn about the game suck in all I can. . I just started to playing about 8 month ago. Thank you for this.

this is an interesting strategy i`m going to try it because i was just going with the flow by now.i hope it`ll give good results. thanks a lot

This was really a interesting thing, but when i play for fun i dont really think that much of the math of the game. but it is really good
strategy when i play it for real,
so thank you.
-artel-

The math aspect is what has always kept me from taking poker too seriously. Like many others I just like the fun of the game and playing by flow and instinct instead of calculating the odds but I would definitely agree that a mathematical approach is the best way to consistently win for the serious player.

That's a good read.

[Todd]

I never thought of a mathematical approach to playing poker. I 'm pretty good at math, so I'll give this a try.

[admin]

Actually, the mathematics, is really there to backup some foundation things (like how to play when you are down the list from the dealer, when to raise - due to statistics, etc.)..

I don't do the math either, but I do use the 'averages' to enhance my game (that is, not to loose as much!

Enjoy!