What To Do

Someone teach me Gus Hansen math

Hand #58731565-39 at Daily620pm-Final (No Limit tournament Hold'em)
Started at 17/Nov/08 19:48:10

acesuspect is at seat 0 with 15020.
INSTACALL_OBV is at seat 1 with 89215.
JackTee is at seat 4 with 10970.
madisonmmm is at seat 6 with 15585.
loco tx larry is at seat 9 with 8710.
The button is at seat 6.

acesuspect posts ante (200).
INSTACALL_OBV posts ante (200).
JackTee posts ante (200).
madisonmmm posts ante (200).
loco tx larry posts ante (200).
acesuspect posts the small blind of 1000.
INSTACALL_OBV posts the big blind of 2000.

acesuspect: -- --
INSTACALL_OBV: Td 9d
JackTee: -- --
madisonmmm: -- --
loco tx larry: -- --

Pre-flop:

JackTee goes all-in for 10770. madisonmmm folds.
loco tx larry folds. acesuspect folds.
INSTACALL_OBV...

Getting like 1.6 to 1.. it is really close

How does the math work, though, that tells if I call or not?

For the sake of it, assume that I know that he has Ax or Kx, that I have two live cards.

I remember reading Gus Hansen's book about the Aussie Millions win, and I never understood how he did the math in these circumstances.

Here's how he seems to figure these situations from what I read, the easy part to figure is the pot odds:

For your hand:

POT=200+200+200+200+200+1000+2000+10770=15770

You need to call 8770 to win 15770 which is ~1.8:1 which also means you need to win ~36% (1/(1+1.8 )) of the time to break even. If your odds of winning are above 36% you should call,if less you should fold.

The harder part is determining your odds of winning allthough in this case it's not too relevant, your opponent could have anything and your hand plays fine against random hands, even Ax and Kx you could be anywhere from 40% to close to even money depending on the kicker etc.

In general though knowing the actual math to determine the winning percentage is more complicated and most people don't bother with knowing how, it's enough to know some basic odds which apply to most situations like (all of these preflop) underpair against overpair (~18%) one overcard against a pair (like A5 against 77, ~30%), etc. If there are no pocker pairs you're rarely worse than ~40% or so if you have the worst hand unless one of cards is counterfited (probably ~30% depending on specific cards). I don't know of anyone who calculates these percentages on the fly while playing, you just figure how many outs you have and pretty much memorize what the odds of hitting that number are, being suited or connected doesn't make such a huge difference, it's not like you know exactly what you're up against anyway.

So in summary, determine necessary win percentage based on pot odds (if odds are a:b against percentage is a/a+b), put your opponent on a hand or range and determine win percentage (memorize approximates) and compare the two to make a decision. While he goes through this reasoning many times in that book I wouldn't call this Gus Hansen math, this is just general winning poker strategy.

I'm pretty sure Gus Hansen says in the book that he pretty much never turns down 2:1 because he's rarely going to be much more of a dog than that unless his cards are really bad or the opponent is a super rock (in your exact case opponent's style really doesn't matter since he's short). This is basically correct even though a lot of people don't like calling here with 10 7 or whatever...

Thank you very much, this is exactly the reply I was looking for.

snap call.

also apestyles, pearljammer and other internet mtt players also rarely ever laydown 2:1

INSTA CALL OBV