Learning Implied Odds
Implied odds are often times misunderstood or overestimated. There is one major prerequisite that needs to be considered before you can properly calculate your implied odds in a pot. This prerequisite is the increased likelihood that your opponent will put all of his money into the pot. In other words, if you are going to calculate your implied odds you must first know that you can consider the other players stack into the equation.
When Implied Odds are Useful
If you are in a limped pot (hopefully you didn’t open limp!) and the flop gives you a flush draw, are you going to be able to accurately consider your implied odds? No, it would be impossible to assume that the other player(s) are willing to stack off in a situation where you have no solid pieces of information. If you were in a 3-bet pot pre-flop against a tight player, however, you could better factor your implied odds. Since the pot was 3-bet and the player is tight there is an increased likelihood that he has a strong hand. Knowing this allows you to consider the potential money he would be willing to invest into the pot as part of your odds in the hand. The money still in his stack represents the “implied” portion of implied odds.
You really start to determine and consider your implied odds when the action is going to be dictated by future moves. If you have a small stack and are going to be all in regardless, there is no reason to consider implied odds. If you and your opponent are both deep stacked it is a near necessity to consider your implied odds.
An example of a hand with implied odds
You are playing .50/1 and are dealt As Js in MP. The UTG player opens to $4 and you call. Everyone else folds. You and the other player have roughly $100 stacks. The pot is $9.50 as you see the flop.
The flop comes 8s Qs Kd. He leads $7 into the $9.50 pot.
This is a fantastic time to consider your implied odds. If you call the $7, how much can you expect to win if you hit? In other words, what winnings are implied if you make your straight or flush. Considering what we know it would be fair to say that we could end up profiting $30 or more in this situation. So, $7 to win $30 would put us at approximately 1:4.5. Since we have a much better shot than 1:4.5 to make our flush or straight (or maybe even pair the ace) we can safely call.
Pre-flop Implied Odds
Pre-flop implied odds are also important. The most frequent scenario where you will need to consider implied odds pre-flop is when you get 3-bet with a pocket pair. Your call should be at a lower ratio in relation to pot size than your odds to hit and get paid off. For example, if you get re-raised with 88 after you opened to $4 at 100NL, you could call a $6 raise to $10. Assuming you both have $100 stacks you would simply take 6:100 and find that this number is far greater than the amount of times you will hit your set.
Pocket pairs are the best time to consider implied odds pre-flop as most other hands have too many other potential problems. AQ, for example, is a difficult hand to analyze. If you hit your queen you might not be good, whereas when you hit a set you are almost definitely ahead.