Poker Math That Matters

Let’s try one more.
Hero: A♠K♥.
Villain: J♣T♦
Board: J♠9♣8♦2♥
The pot is $40. Our opponent bets $10. Should we call or fold?
We see his bet was 1/4 pot, so we know from Table 5 we need to
have 16% equity to call. We now look at our outs and see we
have six outs. Using the 4/2 rule, we multiply 6 times 2 and get
12%. This is smaller than the 16% we need, so we should fold.
Again, we can run an EV calculation to check the EV of this call
when we’re away from the table.
0.12($50) - 0.88($10) = EV
$6 - $8.8 = (-$2.80)
Or
0.12($60) - $10 = EV
$7.20 – $10 = (-$2.80)
Examining pot odds can be done in seconds at the table. Make
sure you take time to memorize Table 5 and practice until you’re
very comfortable with this process.
63