Poker: More homework

Let’s pick up where we left off a few weeks ago with poker hand probabilities.

After you get past the suited cards odds before the flop, we go back to pairs for a minute. The odds of getting pocket aces or pocket kings is 0.9%. And a word of advice to go along with this. Don’t let people tell you it’s a trap to bet huge on pocket aces or kings. It’s probably because they’ve been burned on it before, but that doesn’t change the statistics for everyone else. These are strong hands on Poker Stars, and hands to use as a bully tactic to get people on draws off their hand before it hurts you. There’s not a whole lot you can do about somebody who’s determined to call against their better judgment because they’re going off that ever-popular “gut feeling”, but eventually that type of play will catch up with anybody, while you’re type of play with those strong hands will win you some money.

The odds of getting pocket Aces, pocket Kings OR Ace, King off the deal is 2.1%. The odds of getting any pocket pair or two cards higher than a 10 is a whopping 18%. This is one of the reasons why you shouldn’t get too excited when you have something like J, Q. It’s a decent starting hand, but nothing to throw your weight around with. As you can see, there’s almost a 1/5 chance that somebody has as strong a hand or stronger, and if you take into account there are usually 5-7 other players you’re facing at any given time, those odds increase.

The odds of getting any pocket pair of sevens or higher on Poker Star is 16%. And here’s my favorite stat, because if you get a pair off the deal, the only thing you’re thinking about, worse than a horse with blinders, is when my set card is going to hit in the community hand. Well, the odds of taking that pair to the river to complete that set (or a better hand) is – take heart (no pun intended) – 19%. See, it can happen.

These statistics are just the basics of forming your pre-flop strategy, but I encourage you to learn them and remember them. They’ll prove quite useful when it comes time to take everything into account before making a decision. You might not be able to read the player every hand, but there’s no debating the math.