After he re raises all in on the turn Im pretty sure he made a straight and Im behind for high with no low. Eitherway there are 40$ in the pot, I have to call 11$. Is that 4:1 on my money? I still have 17 outs to improve, 30ish% equity. How are pot odds and equity related in this hand?

Party Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
9 players


Stack sizes:
UTG: $22.70
UTG+1: $18.98
MP1: $61.02
MP2: $45.45
Hero: $36.08
CO: $9.55
Button: $15.37
SB: $23.62
BB: $37.87

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is MP3 with
4 folds, Hero calls, CO calls, Button folds, SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: ($1, 4 players)
SB checks, BB bets $0.95, Hero raises to $2.9, CO folds, SB calls, BB calls.

Turn: ($9.7, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $9.25, SB raises all-in $20.47, BB folds, Hero calls?.

Main pot: $50.64

Well, this is the easiest call in Christendom first of all ....

My thoughts on pot odds and omaha mathematics:

I think the thing that confuses people about drawing odds in omaha is that pot odds and calling/raising amounts are often quoted in totally different ways. As I have no grounding in horsey racing, I have no particular reason to quote things in bookie odds. Being a dull scientist, I prefer percentages, as they make me feel all mathematical and stuff. My advice would be to think of everything in the same terms; whatever's more comfortable for you, whether you use odds or percentages, but stick to the same thing.

Here's an example using the hand you quoted.

The final pot is $50. I am going to have to call $11 to get to showdown. Therefore, I am putting 22% of the final money into the pot to see a showdown. This means that, come showdown, I need to win the whole pot MORE THAN 22% of the time for my call to be making me money. Pretty simple stuff.

OK, so what are my outs?

Well, I have the top set. This means that I will win anytime the board pairs. There are 10 cards that can pair the board. If we assume your opponent has no pairs (a bit of a leap of logic!) that means you have 10 of 40 unknown cards to hit. That's 25%. So ALREADY your set is winning you 25% of the total pot.

BUT you also have a flush draw. Because it's a backdoor flush and the 3rd nut in hearts, chances are VERY good that a heart will be good for you. If we continue to assume ALL your outs are clean (again, unlikely) we can ascribe a likely 7 outs to your flush draw. That's 17% or so.

SO - with a flush draw plus a boat draw on the turn, you have 25+17% = 42% of the total equity.

BUT, again we need to take some other stuff into account. Firstly, if your opponent called the flop, there's a chance he has pairs on the board. Additionally, though it's unlikely (because your flush is BACKDOOR, not on the flop), there's always a chance he has a better flush draw. Here, we have to make an assumption, and say that these possibilities will rear their head often enough to take perhaps 5-10% from your odds.

However, there's also the chance (at this level) that SB doesn't have the nut straight on the turn here, he could easily have slow-played a lower set, made two pair plus a few draws, hands like that. I'd reckon that this possibility (barring no read on this guy) adds a few % to your equity, as you'll be well over 50% against any of these hands.

So, ultimately we arrive at a guesstimate of how much of the pot you hold and how much he holds. If we take the 42% figure, take away "a bit" (remember it's a GUESStimate) for the possibility that he's got some of your draws covered, and add a bit for the possibility you're still ahead. Experience will help you crunch these numbers a bit (if you can't do it vaguely accurately after several years of playing you're probably not cut out to be an omaha player!).

You probably come to a final equity figure of somewhere around 40%, perhaps just under. Given that you've only got to put in 22% of the final pot, it's +EV. In other words, you're putting $11 into a $50 pot and and you'll get somewhere approximately in the $20 region back. So everytime you call, you've made yourself 9 "Sklansky dollars" or whatever dickheads call them. Not bad for 20 milliseconds' work.

Bare in mind that any time all this number-crunching is "close" (i.e. you're not sure if a call is +EV or -EV) chances are it's not going to be a big problem whether you call or not. Focus on making the right decisions in pots where you'll either be making a BIG killing or a BIG mistake; the marginal stuff in PLO makes you a few bucks here or there but as long as you're not mistaking a killing spot for a marginal one, you won't be losing or gaining a huge amount. In this case, it's not a marginal spot at all - it would be horrible to fold because, as we've just found out, your $9 call should generate a $20 return - over a 100% return, so folding would be ugly.

To help you crunch all this stuff at the table, learn the odds for all the common match-ups in PLO (approximate or exact) by whatever means seems best; using an odds calculator to throw in some hypotheticals is best (try the one at twodimes.net). You need to know how often a set beats a straight on the turn, on the flop etc, how much equity you hold on a certain board with a certain holding. Then you should be able to get a fairly instant feel as to how much equity you hold, and you should be able to make additions or subtractions to that number depending on other factors, such as "how bluffy is my opponent", "how likely is my non-nut flush draw to be good", "will somebody else call, thus improving my odds hugely", stuff like that. To be a good PLO player you not only need to be able to do this stuff fairly routinely but to find it challenging, interesting, and enjoyable. It's the nuts and bolts of the game and once you have it down reasonably well you'll be crushing most of your opponents.

I've probably just helped you make thousands of dollars so if I ever sleep with your wife or run over your dog or something, you should bare that in mind and buy me a beer anyways!

Hope this helps. Except the running over your dog bit.

Monk