Poker Facts
The last post talked about how most of the time in poker the ‘right’ move or the ‘right’ action depends on a lot of factors. However, there are some basic poker ‘facts’ that do not vary and are a good place for a new player to begin their study of the game. Poker rules and poker math are good instances of such ‘facts’.
Let’s take an easy example: the number of outs to a flush draw in Hold’em. You have two diamonds for down cards and on the flop two more diamonds hit the board. Since there are 13 diamonds in the deck and you can see 4 of them, there are 9 more diamonds that can come on the turn or the river to make your flush. Also since you can see 5 cards total, there are 47 cards you cannot see, so: 9 cards of the remaining 47 can make your flush. These are facts and you can do calculations of pot odds and odds of winning (and losing) the hand with those hard facts.
Suppose this hand occurred in a 5/10 cash game and you are heads up. If you don’t bet then your opponent can bet 5 on the flop and 10 on the turn, which means it will cost you a maximum of 5 to see the turn card and 10 more to see the river; 15 is your maximum further commitment to draw to the flush. Should you hit the flush, you can bet or raise and then your opponent will have some information on you but it won’t be a ‘fact’ because you could be betting without the flush.
It is always to your advantage to be betting a hand with the ‘facts’ while your opponent is struggling with partial information.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #37
