Pot odds?

A better way to think about it is like this. Say you raise to $10 on the button in a live 1/2 game. The CO was the only limper and he calls your raise, and blinds fold.

There is now $20 in the pot, and the CO donk-leads $10 on a J-8-3 flop.

You should base your equity on his betting range. If you have a lot of history with this guy and know the only time he leads like this is when he has a pair, then you can assume that an A or K are good. But, what if his calling range pre is quite tight, and thus his betting range will contain more Aces and Kings, like AJ, KJ, than someone with a looser range who would only bet a pair on the flop. The looser guy could have J9, T8s for example.

Then there are all other types of players. Some will donk-lead QT, T9, AT, or bet even wider with tons of bluffs. You have muuuch better equity vs these ranges, and by no means do you need to hit an A or K to win the hand.

So as I stated initially, you should be calculating your equity vs your opponent's range, and more often than not, that means you're not just trying to calculate the probability of hitting an A or K, or an "out".

So, that said, I'll give one example of how you should be doing these calculations.

Go back to the scenario where you have AK vs the CO. CO leads for $10, and you estimate you have 33% equity vs his betting range.

The pot odds are 3:1. There is $30 in the pot and the bet-size is $10. If you convert this to a fraction, it's $10/$40 which is 25%. So, given the pot-odds, you need 25% equity to call profitably, and as we already determined, you have 33% equity vs he CO's bettin range. Therefore, you should call the $10 bet.

/r/poker Thread