Implied Odds/Reverse Implied Odds
 
The term is often used, but many don’t understand its meaning. Implied odds are the positive expectation you can get from a hand’s future action.
 
If you hold a small wired pair, you can pre-flop without getting the current pot odds of approximately 7-1 odds of flopping a set because you know that if you flop a set, you are likely to have additional positive equity bets on future streets, making your call profitable. How short of a price you can effectively take depends upon your ability to acquire future positive equity action to make up for the current shortfall.
 
Reverse implied odds is the reverse. They generally occur when you hold a mediocre hand that has greater propensity to acquire negative equity rather than positive equity in the future. Examples of reverse implied odds might be when your hand has little chance of improving, an you read your opponent to be liable to have a hand that’s more likely to extract equity from you than the converse. You might be already beat, not be able to obtain action when your hand is good, drawing to a loser, against an opponent who will extract action when his hand is good though not when he is beat, etc.
 
When you hold a drawing hand with implied odds, you benefit from your potential future action. When your holdings overall edge is more likely to be disadvantaged by future action, you’re in a reverse odds situation.
 
So don’t quantify your hand by the odds that is currently good. Quantify it by the blended average of what you should win/lose should you play your hand forward. Obviously, there are unknowns as you can never be sure what your opponent will do. But by repeatedly doing these calculations, even when you’re not in a pot, you’ll get a good feel for the approximate odds.
An when the odds aren’t right, don’t continue.
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