Not quite that simple, but I guess I see what you saying. I'm serious though, they say if you know someones range you own their soul. I'm not the devil, but I want their chips. I'm talking about playing poker at a high level. Like how a pro would play a hand or many hands. Gus Hanson is strong at math and figuring the odds and so forth. I'm not nearly as good in math as him, so I can't be that accurate. I know the formula exist, honestly I'm not smart enough in math for that to be a big factor of my game. In the future, I plan to improve my math skills and I'm sure that alone would answer some questions of this nature. I think one needs to be strong in math to do some of these things at a high level. The better you are the more accurate you can be. Please post any good thoughts on this issue, any guidelines or whatever. I believe once you have the fundamentals down, a lot the game is right here.

Finding out ranges just happens after playing with an opponent for a while. You should be thinking along the lines of "Well, he raised my preflop raise, so I'm probably looking at AK, AQ, or JJ+" or "He tried to limp preflop, but then he called my raise. Maybe he flopped a set?" Then you use your reads to your opponent to analyze his other plays in the hand. Does he check or raise his flush draws? Would he check top-pair or bet it?

Once you have someones range figured out, you can use that to calculate pot odds. This is a big topic and is probably better explained somewhere else here. The basic idea of it, though, is that if the pot is laying you a price that's better than your hand, you should call.

Lets look at this hand. Blinds are $50/$100. You are dealt AsQs. You make it $500 to go preflop. Villian calls.
Flop comes up [Ks, 7c, 7s].
Villian bets out $400.
By your reads on Villian, you know that he would slow play a set, so he either has top pair or a pocket pair.

You flopped the nut flush draw. If there is $1150 in the pot and he bets another $300, you should absolutely call that. It will cost you $300 to win $1450, so you are being laid 4.8 - 1. Your hand, however, will win with 12 of the 47 cards left in the deck (9 spades, 3 aces), which is roughly 3.9 - 1. By that logic, since the pot odds are in your favor, if you run the same hand thousands of times to wear out the probability, you will make money in the long run from calling.

are you 12 or something?

If you are so dam smart, why don't you break it down, tell us your theory on poker. I think the question is most likely over your head, so put up or shut the fuck up.

Originally Posted by shane

If you are so dam smart, why don't you break it down, tell us your theory on poker. I think the question is most likely over your head, so put up or shut the fuck up.