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6+ Hold’em

Six Plus Hold’em Pot Odds

14,904 Views on 24/6/16

It’s time to turn to the mathematical side of the game and see just how much difference the 36-card deck makes to pot odds.

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Having already dealt with hand rankings and the starting hands in parts 1 and 2, it’s time to turn to the mathematical side of the game and see just how much difference the 36-card deck makes to pot odds.

This will obviously involve looking at whether you’re likely to be ahead or not at any given point, and also calculating the percentages of outs available for you or your opponent.

Let’s start with an open example:


Example 1

Six plus Hold’em ($10/20, 6-handed)

Hero: 910

Villain: QQ

 Villain opens in seat 1 for $50, everyone else folds and you call in the BB. Pot = $110

 Flop: 7KA

Hero checks and Villain continuation bets$55, half the pot, making the pot$165 (let’s not discuss whether it’s a good play or not - I’m trying to make the maths simple for us all!)

We don’t know what the villain has,  but we’re pretty sure we are only drawing to the flush here, so it comes down to pot odds whether we call or not (let’s ignore a speculative re-raise in this scenario!)

There are only nine spades in the deck in total (remember that the 2,3,4 and 5 are all out of play) and five of them are split between the board, our hand and our opponent’s hand. We don’t know that he has the Qs, so that’s only four in play for our purposes – so five cards left to draw to.

So, 5 of the 31 cards unknown to us will likely win, which is about a 17% chance of hitting, and we have two attempts at hitting it, so roughly 34%.

The other way of calculating this is to count one out, which is one in 31 = 3.2%, so…

5 cards x 3.2% x 2 attempts = 32%, which is close enough for practical purposes.

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In this instance, we are being offered 3-1 on the pot, and we are 2-1 to win, so it’s an easy call. Our flush draw will come in more often than not.

So, just as we saw in Part 2 that we are twice as likely to receive any particular starting hand, so the unofficial ‘Rule of 4 & 2’ changes and becomes…..the ‘Rule of 2&1’. Our %’s are easy to calculate quickly, if not 100% accurately.

With two cards to come in Texas Hold’em, we multiply our outs by four, if only the river is left then times by two. In Six Plus 2x and 1x is the easy way.

Also useful to note is if we had reason to believe our opponent was on trips, then his quite realistic chances of hitting a full house would have to be factored in were we playing Texas Hold’em – but in Six Plus a Flush beats a Full House anyway, so it wouldn’t be an issue. A difference, and a crucial one.

Let’s try another example, and see how straights play with pot odds and outs.



Example 2

Six plus Hold’em ($10/20, 6-handed)

Hero: 910

Villain: QQ

Villain opens in seat 1 for $50, everyone else folds and you call in the BB. Pot = $110

Flop: 78K

Hero checks and Villain c-bets $55, half the pot, making the pot $165 (again, keeping the maths simple)

So, first of all we have ‘nothing’ except an open-ended straight draw, and we can consider our opponent to have something better than this, so again we are drawing to win.

We have eight outs (the four 6’s and the 4 Jacks) and there are again 31 unknown cards, so roughly 26%. And we have the turn and river to hit them. So, using the ‘guesstimator’ rule of ‘2 & 1’ for practical play, we can say 2 x 26%=52% chance of hitting.

Just to check this….

8 cards x 3.2% x 2 attempts = 51%, again close enough to know we’ve done it right.

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This is even clearer than example one when it comes to pot odds: 3-1 pot odds and even money on a win with your straight.

However, if you factor in that your opponent might have trips – which now beats a straight in Six Plus Holdem, it brings the odds down a bit - though you’d have to actually ‘know’ he was on trips to let it affect your play here.

The even more interesting aspect which this brings up, as pointed out on PokerVIP, is that:

Basically, if you know that your opponent doesn’t have trips or better, you can just keep on raising, because if you have any kind of fold equity, you’re going to profit in the long run; and when you do get called, it’s as close to a flip as it will ever be, provided you’re not drawing dead.”

Let’s draw up a table which shows the Texas Hold’em %’s versus the new Six Plus Hold’em %’s. These are the numbers you should learn by heart!




Odds and Probabilities from the flop to the river
Texas 
Six Plus
Making a flush from a 4-flush   
34.5%  
33%
Making a full house or better from a set
33.3%
54%
Making a full house from 2 pair 
16.4% 
26%
Filling an open-ended straight draw
31.3% 
51%
Filling a gutshot straight by the river 
16.4%
26%


Odds and Probabilities at the turn
Texas 
Six Plus
Making a flush from a 4-flush
19.6%
16.5%
Making a full house or better from a set
21.7%
32.2%
Making a full house from 2 pair
8.33%
12.8%
Filling an open-ended straight draw
17.2%
25.6%
Filling a gutshot straight draw
8.33%
12.8%



OK, so these are the basics regarding pot odds and outs –for deeper strategy I refer you back to our earlier link where you can find all sorts of goodies which explain the differences in more details: stacking off, 3-betting ranges and much more.

For the time being, this 3–parter has hopefully set you up to at least play Six Plus Hold’em without the feeling that you know nothing about this action-packed version of poker!

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