I am looking for a book or website that discusses how to calculate odds properly. I'm not looking for a chart that says there is a x % chance of ___. I'm looking for the math behind those calculations.

Thanks.

Mike

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Lou Krieger has a few good articles over at cardplayer. Is this what you are looking for?

http://cardplayer.com/poker_magazin...ves/?a_id=13913
http://cardplayer.com/poker_magazin...ves/?a_id=13473

those are some great articles, mike... hopefully some online players will read that and try to understand that they shouldn't call all-ins with flush draws... well, i doubt that the online players will change. my favorite online move still stands: going all in with AKos when the board is 329 rainbow, and then cursing the guy out for calling with 99...

Its better to get it from the horse's mouth, all you have to do is count the # of outs you need to make your hand (does not guarantee that making your hand will win you the pot). Once you have that, and you want to calculate the odds after the flop here's how you do it. Let's say you are in a common situation with a flush draw on the flop that you think will win if you hit it. You have 9 cards that will make your hand and two cards to hit it (13 of the suit, 2 in your hand 2 in the board or other combinations). Statistically you use a counterintuitive way to calculate this, you first ask your self, what is the probability that I will NOT hit the flush drawing two unknown cards and subtract that probability from 1 or 100%.

1 - (38/47 * 37/46) = 35.0%
From this you can calculate your pot odds needed to make this a wining call which is (100%/35.0% - 1) = 1.86 to 1
So if the raise is $50 and there is now $110 in the pot, you can call the raise. There are even implied odds that you can add to that if you think you will win additional money if you do hit the cards you need. You can change the formula to calculate the other odds as you see the numbers 38 and 37 in the formula is just the # of unknown cards - # of outs. The turn is much easier to calculate as it is just # of outs / 46 to get your percentage (about 20% on a flush draw meaning if there are 4 chips you will win to every 1 chip you call you will break even in the long run making these calls). Again, you can hit your flush and lose to the full house if you don't put your opponent on flopping a set, just a friendly reminder. Good luck!
Minnejohnny

Thanks for the articles and explanations.

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apod,

sooner or later these players have to start going broke. they can't keep this up for ever.

very true mike... i played sycuans tournament tonight and placed in second. early on i had 7,8s and made a raise and got a caller. i flopped two pair and went all in and got called by AKos (no pair) and told the guy and i quote 'what the hell are you calling for. you have absolutely nothing; no draw, no pair; absolutely nothing... i hope you f*cking die you worthless piece of sh*t for calling with absolutely nothing for absolutely no reason but to gamble. you are a worthless excuse for a human being.' and he didn't say a word to me. classic apod? i think so.

you should buy one of those hidden cameras and video tape your adventures. i'd pay $5 a month to have access to APODPokerVideos.com.

so would i mike... so would i....

Someone recommended I buy Edward Packel's The Mathmatics of Gambling. I'm about halfway through so far, and have found it to be very helpful. Its not focused on poker, but gambling probabilities and calculating expectations in various non-standard scenarios.

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most gambling odds, if not all, can be found on the internet nowadays. check out www.wizardofodds.com for most table game odds and strategies.