It is very common to have half a hand in poker, where you are looking to catch a certain card to complete a potentially big hand. These are often referred to as ‘drawing hands’, and they can win you a lot of money if you play them correctly. It is easy enough to work out the odds we have to win the hand by comparing the number of outs to the cards left in the deck along with the bet and pot size, but there is another additional factor that we should be included when deciding whether or not to make the call.
If the pot odds are what we expect to win instantly from the hand if we make our draw, the implied odds are what we can expect to win after making our hand. This is because after we have made our hand, we can assume that there will be further betting, and because we have a made hand we will be winning more money than that is currently in the pot. So how do we use these implied odds?
Unlike with pot odds, you cannot give a specific numerical figure to your implied odds. With pot odds you can give yourself a clear-cut number to work with to decide whether or not to make the call, but implied odds are slightly different. You can only estimate that you will either have ‘good’ implied odds or ‘bad’ implied odds. As you can guess, with good implied odds you expect to win a lot of money after completing your hand, whereas with bad implied odds you do not expect to win much after completing your hand.
An example of good implied odds is where you are calling a raise pre-flop with a pocket pair to try and hit a set. You can assume that you will win a lot of money after hitting your set; therefore you have good implied odds. A situation with bad implied odds would be where you have an ace in your hand of once suit with 3 cards of the same suit on the board. If you are drawing to try and make your flush, you will have bad implied odds because you cannot expect to win much more money if another card of the same suit comes because the board will look so scary. As a general rule, the more hidden your hand is, the better implied odds you have.
These implied odds should then have an influence when deciding whether to call with the pot odds you currently have in the hand. If you do not have the correct pot odds to make a call, it may be profitable to call if you believe that you have good implied odds because you will be winning more money in the long run. Similarly, if you do not have the pot odds again and are unsure about whether to call, you can be more inclined to fold if you have bad implied odds because you do not expect to win much after completing your hand. But remember, if you have the right pot odds, then you should call every time regardless of the implied odds.
