What I’m about to express is my opinion and I welcome all who would like to post thiers.

For many years I assisted Jack McClelland in running major tournaments. I then went on for many more years running tournaments and satellites for one of the world’s largest cardrooms. Perhaps my thinking on tournaments is old school, but are tournaments changing for the better?

Since history tournaments have typically paid 39% to 40% of the prize pool to the winner. But I recently have had a hard time finding any tournaments (at least at the places where I play) that pay more than 25% to the winner. What is going on here?

I can understand the World Series doing it. When a 40% prize pool is 8 million dollars or more, changing it to 25% doesn’t really change things much for the winner but does make a difference to the runner ups.

I recently visited a local card casino and was shocked to find that they use a 20% to 25% payout to their tournaments. Their daily tournaments only cost $40 to $200.  With a $40,000 prize pool, what used to pay $16,000 now pays less than $10,000. That’s a big difference.

I can see how the casinos love it. For them it’s all about money in their pocket. With a 40% payout, usually only the top two, sometimes three, will tip as they are the ones winning the majority of the money. With a 25% payout, more people at the top get paid and thus more tips for the casino. That’s great for a casino but that’s is bad for a poker player.

Here’s why it is bad for the average player. For one, it favors the poker pro. Pro’s don’t win as many tournaments as they used too (before the WPT and television popularized poker). The competition has swelled and just about anyone with a little luck seems to win nowadays. One things the pros do have is consistency. They can get in the money and many have hundreds of final table finishes. Spreading the money out helps the pro. The average joe on the other hand, who hardly ever comes in the money but finally makes his big win and scores a first, now gets a much smaller payout. He probably won’t win again, but the one time he won 100% of the chips, he was paid only 25% of the money. That has to suck.

Secondly, the difference in payout from one finsh to the next was a lot more. It made it a challenge, an honor, a victory when one could beat an opponent and get a much higher payout. In the 25% payout structure the difference from one payout level to the next is so small, many players don’t even bother playing any more. They just chop and get out of there. Again, the casino wins,  they have your money  but they all get to go home early.

What happened to the thrill of victory, the feeling of self accomplishment you get when you beat the best?

I recently sat in a game and observed the following shortly after taking my seat. A player in the second to last seat to act, limped into a pot playing 10-7 suited. The small blind called and the hand was on.

The flop came 8-9-J and the player went all in with his 10-7. He was called by one of the blinds who then showed Q-10 to win the pot.

As the busted player left, another player commented, “he sure was unlucky”. Now, I didn’t see any previous hands to see if he had suffered any bad beats, but from just this one hand, luck had nothing to do with him going broke.

Playing 10-7 suited is not a playing hand. Maybe if everyone else called, but definately not in a three handed pot. Had the player folded preflop, he  would still have his money. Luck did not kill his bankroll, but rather his lack of skill killed his bankroll.

Thanks to Steve Larson for writing this article

In order to be successful in poker in the long run, knowing your mathematical odds is very important.

Mind you though, you shouldn’t base your decisions solely on these odds. These percentages are there to give you a starting point when you evaluate your hand and measure it up to your opponents’ possible hands.

You probably know too that good poker players play their opponents and not their cards. That is what you should try to achieve. In some situations however (like at micro limit FL Holdem tables) playing the player is just not possible. You won’t be able to scare anyone, and the limits are so small that almost everyone is out to see each and every hand all the way to showdown.

The law of the blinds says, that the smaller the blinds are in relation to future bets, the tighter one should play. In this case though, the size of the future bets is so limited that the blinds are actually going to be pretty big when compared to them. This is what justifies the loose play.

Under such circumstances, knowing how to use pot odds and the odds you get for your hand in making a decision, can be the difference between winning or being caught up in the fray and breaking even.  

Right before showdown, with all the cards on the table, the decision is not so much a mathematical one. What you need to do in that situation is to put your opponent on a hand or a range of hands, and see how many of those your hand could actually beat. If all you can beat is a bluff, the decision is a no-brainer. Again, reads that you make on your opponent and the way you exploit your table image might always contradict your mathematical odds, and by golly, often these calls based on experience and skill are indeed the voices to follow. 

With cards to come, calculating odds is slightly more complicated though. Let’s suppose you have an open ended straight on the river, and you’re facing a $10 bet on a $50 pot. Should you call or should you fold? That is the proverbial question here. If we look at things from a strictly mathematical perspective, you need to check your pot odds first. You have to pay $10 to win $50, which means you get 5-1 odds. If you need to call like $35 to get a shot at a $184 pot, simply divide 184 with 35 and you get your odds. Back to our example though: the pot odds are 5-1.

Next thing you need to cover are the odds of you making your straight. To make it, you need one of 8 cards from the deck, you have an 8-outer. Subtract 5 cards from the 2 card deck, (52-5= 47) because those are already in your possession or on the board. Subtract the 8 outs you have from the 47 remaining cards (47-8= 39), and you get the number of cards that do not help you. The odds against you making your hand are: 39-8. (8 cards help you, 39 don’t). Reduce that by dividing with 8 and you get 4.875-1. These odds are better than the 5-1 odds you get on the pot, so you should indeed call. This example shows the importance of outs excellently. If you had a gutshot straight instead of the open ended one, you’d have but 4 outs, and that would make your odds 43-4, which is 10.75-1, which means you should definitely not call. 

While this looks pretty simple, bear one thing in mind: this calculus is only valid for your turn card. You may or may not make your straight on the turn though, and you’ll get another chance to complete your hand on the river. For odds on that, you need to estimate the money it’ll cost you to see the river card, which means this is no longer an exact science. These are called effective odds, and you can approximate them by adding up your odds on the turn, and the estimated ones on the river.

Implied odds are even more abstract, because they take into account something that is not mathematically measurable: the possible return in case you do make your hand. 

Keep your mathematical odds in check all the time, even if you know you’re not going to make your decisions based on them. They do offer you a small lead as to what you need to do, and you should never pass on any edge no matter how insignificant it is.

In that respect, do not forget to sign up for rakeback too if you play online poker. A good rakeback deal is not a small edge at all (see the 27% Full Tilt rakeback), so you definitely shouldn’t skip it.

If you are new to poker, then you will want to try your hand at Texas Hold’em  first. It is one of the easiest poker games to learn for beginning players, unlike Seven Card Stud or Omaha. In fact, Texas Hold’em can be learned in just a few minutes. Within a few hours, you could (and I use that loosely) be playing like a professional!

With Texas Hold’em , expect the betting arrangement to fluctuate. Most of the time there are two players who will start the game off with an initial amount to kick off the game. Other times, antes are used. A regular playing card deck is used and the dealer gives each player two cards face down. These are referred to as your hole cards in Texas Hold’em.

Next is a round of betting. Keep in mind that there is also folding, raising or calling of card hands. And once the betting ends, the dealer will get rid of the top deck card to stop cheating. After that, the dealer in Texas Hold’em will place three cards face up on the table. This is called a flop and the cards can be used by anyone in conjunction with their hole cards.

There is another round of betting followed by the turn card. This is when the dealer flips another card. A final betting round happens and usually bets can grow quickly. The last thing in Texas Hold’em is when the dealer turns up the last card face up. This maneuver is called the “river.” Players can use their hole cards or the five cards they already have to create a poker hand. The last round of betting ensues in Texas Hold’em. Afterwards, everyone shows their card hands. The player with the best poker hand wins!