What is the right number of bad beats to get?
If you’re not getting any, you’re not playing aggressive enough. Let’s say there is a situation where you are favored 4-1. You should be going all-in with that every time. And one out of five times you will get beat. If you are never getting beat, you aren’t taking winning opportunities. But if you’re getting bad beated a lot, you’re doing something wrong. You’re putting all your chips at stake in coin flips too much. What data can you use to see how you’re doing?
I am reminded of NBA players who never foul out. If you are consistently playing 30+ minutes and only getting 1-2 fouls, you aren’t playing aggressively enough.
Ed, how much money is in the pot? This is the big one. If there is $3,000 in the pot and I only have $1000 left then theoretically I should be going in with any hands that have a 25% chance or more to win. I should be happy to have a coin flip hand.
What were the odds they were going to call me? There’s a certain chance they’ll fold when I go all in, so even if they call and have the best hand it might have been the best play because they might not have played it out. Sometimes an all-in bet bluffs out a better hand.
So a lot of is, it depends.
All that said, 70% would be fine by me, I’m plenty happy with that. Many times even a coin flip hand is okay by me.
I’m talking based on some ignorance to poker, but my question is — what is the minimum odds I want to go all-in on? I realize that this is too general a question — i.e. it likely depends on whether you’re the big stack or small stack or whether it’s early in the game or whatever. But you can caveat your answer however you want.
For example, say everyone at the table has an even stack and you go all in. Someone calls. You turn over the cards and you are 70% likely to win. Are you happy? Or is that not good enough odds?
Yeah, this goes along with my other comment (should have read this post first, lol).
I don’t think there is any real data, other than keeping track of how much money you make over the long run. If you see that you are coming home with lint in your pockets more often than you are buying your wife presents with your winnings (or better yet, yourself! hehe), then you are clearly betting/playing wrong.
But I do think it comes down to a simple case of calculating the odds (winning odds, as well as pot/implied odds), and betting appropriately. Clearly you want to get all your money in with 80% or better odds, but with 50-60%, I would be *much* more cautious in betting. This is why it is a good idea to bet a decent amount (1/2 pot to full pot size) when you hit top pair/top kicker or two pair on the flop when there are two to a flush or straight potential on the board to get the chasers out when you only have a 65% chance of winning, but when the turn is a blank, you bet big. Clearly, the more bad beats you’re getting, the more often you are letting people draw to the river by not betting aggressively enough, so your analysis is spot-on.
Poker is always a balance of folding vs. raising. Too much of one or the other is never a winning strategy.