How many times have you been sitting in a Texas hold'em game, minding your own business, when suddenly there's a very contagious outbreak of "calling-itis" before the flop? Before you know it, everyone's calling the bet and maybe a raise or two or three before the flop! Not only that, they get you to go along for the ride by announcing, "Let's make it a family pot!" You almost feel obligated, and all of a sudden you've been initiated into your own little poker family! OK, "Let's make it a family pot" means we're all going to play nicely together like one big family, and put all of our money in the pot and make it a lottery game, right? Wrong!
What just happened? Why did you call all of those bets with a playable yet mediocre hand? Did you go temporarily insane? Maybe, maybe not. Let's go with the best-case situation, in which everyone in a 10-handed game stays in preflop. With nine other players in the hand against you, they're paying you 9-to-1 odds to stay in. In other words, if you end up winning, they're offering to pay you $9 in winnings for every $1 you bet at this point. That's called 9-to-1 "pot odds" — a big-sounding phrase with a small meaning. Why should you care about "pot odds"? You're there just to have fun and maybe get a little lucky, right? Wrong!
If you're playing a hand that has 7-to-1 odds against winning, you'll lose seven times for every one time you win. That is great when they're paying you 9-to-1 odds and you win that one time. So, what's the problem? The problem is that it's very painful to lose those seven times. But you have to remember that if you play those situations enough times, you'll come out ahead in the long run.
All of those great guidelines you got from your expert poker buddy, and all of those playing strategies you memorized from that great poker book, work pretty well. But where did all of those guidelines and strategies come from? You guessed it — they're fundamentally derived from pot odds. In fact, the essence of the mathematical component of poker is pot odds. I would go so far as to say that pot odds are at work from the moment you're getting excited about joining a game through every wager you place in that game. OK, before you drag me away to the funny farm screaming "Pot odds! Pot odds! Pot odds!" I've got some explaining to do.
If you bet $1 against Joe Schmo's $1 on a series of coin flips, that's an even-money bet, and on average you'll break even. But if Joe offers to bet $2 against your $1 on a series of coin flips, you'll come out ahead. The more coin flips you play, the more of Joe's money you'll get. Why shouldn't this principle apply to any wager you make, including all of your poker bets? Well, in fact, if you follow some sensible guidelines, it will. You're playing hands that have good odds of winning some money based on the odds the other players are offering you, which is called pot odds. From the mathematical piece of the poker puzzle, every single bet you make should be justified by an adequate potential payback if you win. In other words, how much money can you win for the chance you're taking with your hand? Are the pot odds big enough? In poker, it's oftentimes not easy to answer this question, because you don't know exactly what your opponents are holding.
If I see a game with lots of action and an above-average number of players participating in many of the hands, I get excited to join it, because those players are building pots and creating pot odds that will give me the excuse to play more hands and have more fun.
On a recent business trip to Atlantic City, I decided to pop into the Borgata poker room for a couple of hours. I took the first available seat, which happened to be in a "family-oriented" $6-$12 hold'em game, if you know what I mean. Yes, a couple of times I did say, "Let's make it a family pot" as I tossed my money in. It was my kind of fun action game, in which I could play lots of hands because we were building nice pots, giving many of us the pot odds to play around with more hands. About halfway through my session, I looked down to see a couple of aces, and raised. Eventually, the betting was capped, with nine out of 10 players staying in the hand. I wasn't very happy about my little poker family calling all of those raises, because you know what happens to aces in ninehanded pots. All too often, they get cracked! But, I got very lucky and flopped a set that turned into a full house on the turn. I ended up winning a $300 pot. Now, that's my kind of family pot! See you at the family reunion.
