'Buy Low, Sell High' and Implied Odds

Poker is a game of exploiting mistakes. Make few and create opportunities for your foes to make many. The goal isn't to win the most hands, but to win the most money. Know the odds and how to exploit them. And if you don't know what "pot odds" are, please stop reading this, turn to one of our esteemed advertisers, and get a beginners book on poker.

Pot odds is the defining concept in limit hold'em, but there's a debate as to whether pot odds is useful in nolimit hold'em (NLHE). Well, the truth is that pot odds isn't as useful in no-limit because good opponents rarely give the "right price" for the pot (they don't "sell low").

BLSH ("Buy Low, Sell High") is the basic advice for the stock market, and it generally applies to all capitalism. Poor players don't think it really applies to poker. My more specific advice is, "Buy low in limit, sell high in no-limit."

In my last column, I gave a useful example of a hand. You have the A♥ K♥, the board shows the 8♥ 5♠ 2♥ 6♣, and you're second to act with four players in.

If you were playing limit hold'em, the pot might be $400 (10 big bets) and you might be facing a cheap bet of $40. You should love to call a bargain like that (buy low in limit).

Whereas in a NLHE game, with the same cards, you might be looking at a $500 bet into a $400 pot. With the pot laying you less than 2-to-1, you don't have the regular pot odds to call with the A♥ K♥. That's because, in the worst-case scenario, you might have less than a one in 13 chance to win (if one opponent holds the 9♥ 7♥, another holds the 5◆ 5♥, and the third holds the Q♥ J♥). Smart readers might be considering implied pot odds, and they get a gold star. Implied pot odds refer to the subsequent bets you expect to earn if you make your hand; more on this later.

Amateurs think the regular pot-odds concept is worthless in NLHE because they're thinking only of the buy side. If in the NLHE situation above your opponent with the 9♥ 7♥ bet $20 into the $400 pot, you should call in a flash with your A♥ K♥. That's because your opponent made the mistake of giving you correct pot odds. Good players love opponents like this. Solid amateurs recognize that this size bet is rare and conclude pot odds to be irrelevant.

So, now we come to the moral of this story. If you are the one in first position who holds the nuts (9♥ 7♥), you absolutely can't bet a small amount because that would be the mistake of giving your opponent the correct pot odds. You must bet big enough to overcharge your opponents to draw out on you (sell high in no-limit).

The flip side of this issue is even more important. Once you understand to overcharge your opponents, you must think at least one step further.

Revised example: You hold the 9♥ 7♥, the board is the 8♥ 5♠ 2♥ 6♣, and there is $400 in the pot. First to act, you bet $500 and one opponent calls. The river card is the dreaded 8♣ (making a full house or quads possible). There is $1,400 in the pot. Here, you should seriously consider checking, hoping for a check behind you. If you bet anything substantial (over $500), the only reasonable way you will get called is if you are beat (by a full house or quads). So, there is little long-term profit in value betting. If you check, a busted draw might bluff or trips might value bet, and you will win more if you call. The scary instance is when someone raises you or bets big on the river. Is it a bluff?

This is the tricky part of poker. If your opponent bets $3,000 into the $1,400 pot, you should seriously consider folding. The same is true if the river was a heart (even though you would have a flush). If you're deep-stacked and willing to blindly call any amount on the river with a hand that isn't the stone-cold nuts, you are giving your opponents the correct implied odds to call your flop and turn bets. Now, you can't be a fish and fold to all big river bets, but you can't consistently sell low and pay off on the end, either.

When you bet in no-limit, you must consider how deep you are and how deep your opponent is. Let's say you have the A♣ A◆ and raise the $10 big blind to $50 and get called by only the big blind. The flop comes a glorious A♥ A♠ 2♠ and you obviously check. The turn is the 6♠ and the big blind bets $200. If you have only $500 left, it is OK to slow-play and just call here. But if you and your opponent each have $12,000, you really should consider raising.

If the river brings the 3♠, 4♠, or 5♠, you no longer have the nuts. The big blind could have a straight flush, and considering the play of the hand, he very well might. If you have $12,000, just called the $200 turn, and the river does make a straight flush, you have to be very careful. If he bets $2,000, you can't raise him! If he checks the river, you bet $600, and he raises to $12,000, you should seriously consider folding.

If you are willing to put in more than 200 times your preflop raise on the river without the nuts, it is in your opponents' best interests to call with an extremely wide variety of hands (if not all hands). Pocket aces are not more than a 4-to-1 favorite over 5-4 suited or even 10-7 suited. Better than one time in 40 will the 5-4 suited outflop the aces (by making two pair or better). If on the flop you're willing to put in more than 40 times what your preflop bet was, you're making a sucker play.

So, if you raise the $10 big blind to $50 with your pocket aces, get called by someone with the 9♣ 7♣, and put $3,000 in the pot on the flop of 9◆ 7♠ 2♥, you can't complain about a bad beat. You just played badly.

You can't bet small (sell low) and give your opponents the correct implied pot odds. Betting five times the big blind is relatively irrelevant if you are so deep-stacked that you have 500 times the big blind.

Most players never sit down with 500 times the big blind, so the basic NLHE advice is functional. But as you graduate and play with "more room to move," you have to become more aware of BLSH and how deep you're playing.

More important than knowing most everything is knowing when you don't. I don't know everything. Tell me when I'm wrong. ♠

Dan Abrams was the writer/producer of the World Series of Poker documentary in 2000 for the Discovery Channel and the post producer/writer for the World Poker Tour in its first season.