Implied Odds In No Limit Texas Holdem Poker

No Limit Texas Holdem is a game where implied odds dominate a player's more than most other forms of poker played.  So what are implied odds?  Implied odds are the amount of money you expect to win if you call with a drawing hand, and then make your hand.  They are distinguished from pot odds, which only take into account the amount of money currently in the pot when you make your decision.  For example, if you call a $40 bet on the flop with $40 dollars in the pot, and you are chasing a flush, then pot odds state that you are gambling $40, for a chance to win $120  ( The $40 in the pot, your opponents $40, and yours).  Since you are going to make your flush 38% of the time, this may be a good call, you put in 33% of the money, and you get 38% the entire pot back.  This seems fairly straight forward, and in fact it is.   There are numerous methods of estimating pot odds, and calculators to do it for you.  On this site I even has a table of common drawing hands, and the odds that they will hit here, and a quick method of estimating your hand's odds, which you can figure out in the heat of a game, here.

However, there is, or at least should be, more to your decision making than just pot odds.  And one of these things is implied odds.  Just to make things simple, take the above scenario and say that both you and your opponent have a $500 stack when it is time to call the $40 bet, and to chase your flush.  Lets further state that you have the Jack Ten of clubs, the board is K spade 6 clubs 4 clubs, and that you have position on your opponent. We have already determine that the pot odds are 2 to 1 in your favor, so now let us examine the implied odds.  ( I am ignoring the odds of hitting a runner runner for two pair or a straight. There are several things that can happen on the turn. You can make your flush or not, your opponent can bet or not.  This is where reading your opponent is important, knowing his tells and his style of play is crucial to calculating implied odds, but we'll take a shot at it with a made up person. First let us say that the flush comes on the turn. From knowing your opponent you know he will check the turn, call a bet that is less than or equal to half the pot, and fold to a bet on the river. So you know that if you make your hand, you can get another $60 out of your opponent.  This makes your implied odds 1.5 to 1, which combine with the pot odds, is a nice incentive to call the flop bet.

Now lets say that the flush doesn't come on the turn, and your opponent puts another pot sized bet out, this time forcing you to call $120 if you want to continue chasing the flush. You are still getting 2 to 1 to call this bet, but the odds of your winning have dropped to 9/46 ~ 19.5%.  This is clearly a bad things for you, and if you expect your opponent to bet if the turn misses the flush, it hurts your implied odds.

Another scenario, what if you don't have the best hand even if you make your flush? Say you think your opponent might has a 5% chance to be betting the flop with the nut flush draw, and if you make your flush you will pay him off, probably for your entire stack.  Then if you call the bet, there is a 30% (odds change if he has two clubs) chance of the flush coming, 5% of him having the higher flush, and you will lose all your stack.  This corresponds to an expected value of ~ -$10, which further decreases the value of your implied odds.

The net result of my analysis is that I probably wouldn't call the bet. I would not want to face another larger bet on the turn if I didn't make my hand, nor would I want to hit my hand only to lose my stack to a better one.  Although these are clearly not calculations that you can do in the middle of a poker game, it does help your play to investigate different scenarios and try to figure out what you would do.