When you are facing a bet on the flop, calling does not mean that the action is over. There are clearly two more streets of play. If you have a marginal hand and want to see a showdown, reverse implied odds of future streets could end up costing you a lot of money.
After calling the flop, you still have the turn and river to play, and your opponent can bet on both streets.
These future streets can be estimated using implied odds, or reverse implied odds.
When you have a drawing hand (a hand that draws a flush or straight, for example), you benefit from future betting rounds. You may not have the pot odds to make a call worthwhile, but the implied odds of the two future rounds can make a call a profitable play.
To the reverse implied odds work in the opposite way. Let's say you have a good but not great hand with little hope of improving, and you're up against an opponent who has a hand that is either already better than yours or could get better by the river.
These betting rounds can end up costing you a lot of money.
Dominated hands and you
Just like implied odds help you with hands like suited connectors and low pocket pairs, reverse implied odds hurt you in the same way with potentially dominated hands.
When you hit the flop with a dominated hand, it may seem good to you. There is a chance that you have the best hand right now, but it could end up costing you a lot more than you expect.
Example:
A $1/$2 6-Max game with $200 stacks. An aggressive TAG player opens from the button $8 and you call from the BB with :Kh :Js.
The flop comes :3s :Kc :4d. You check/call $13.
Now you have top pair with a good kicker. Your hand could be the best right now, and if the $13 your opponent bet was the only betting round, calling would be the easiest play in the world, but the hand isn't over yet.
The turn brings a :5s. Your opponent bets $30 and you call. You think your hand is the best on the flop and you still think so since the :5s hasn't changed much.
The river brings another :5d and your opponent bets $55 and you decide to call.
You think, analyze that you are pot-committed and make the call, also thinking that your opponent could be bluffing.
He shows :Ad :Ks and takes the pot of $197.
As you can see, your dominated hand faced a problem of reverse implied odds. Unfortunately for you, there are more streets than the flop, and your opponent took advantage of each of them to bet.
Since your opponent is in position, he may choose to turn his hand off on other streets if he feels outmatched. When you actually have the best hand, you will win a small pot, and when you have the worst hand, you will end up losing a large pot.
Good hands, but not great on dangerous boards
Another problem you may encounter is having a hand with little chance of improvement, and your opponent already has a better hand or has a good chance of making a better hand than you by the river.
An example would be a top pair on an extremely drawy board.
Example:
I play $1/$2 online with effective stacks of $400. You have :Ac :Jd in the BB.
A late position player raises to $6 and you 3-BET to $20. He calls and the flop is :Jh :Th :9c.
You bet $30 and he raises to $65.
What do you do? Your hand may be the best, but the board is very dangerous and he may be on a semi-bluff, you may lose your entire stack to find out.
If this were an all-in the call would be acceptable, but in this case the players are 200BB deep. If you call this bet, two big bets could still be coming.
If half the deck is going to be dealing you bad cards, you can't just smooth-call and feel safe about it.
This leaves things down to two options: all-in or fold. If you go all-in, you will never get called by worse hands, so it is best to fold to this flop raise.
Reverse implied odds and you
Looking at the two examples above it should be obvious that situations with reverse implied odds are horrible for your poker game. The problem is that they can't be avoided, so it's best to identify them and try to get out of big pots when you see danger.
Even though it may seem like any move you make in a situation reverse implied odds it will be bad, try to choose the one that is “least bad”.
Taking the safe route and folding hands in these types of situations will save you more money than the few times you are right and end up winning the pot.
Start watching for these types of spots where your hand has little chance of improving against an opponent who has a better hand or a hand that will improve by the river, and try to avoid them.
Your winrate will be very grateful and you will soon notice the difference.
Article translated and adapted from: Reverse ImpIied Odds Explained.
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Analyzing the first hand. The problem is folding this hand after the flop. If you decide to call in position and hit top pair with a decent kicker, how do you fold on other streets? I would have turned the villain over preflop, I would certainly have been 4-bet and folded the hand, losing fewer chips. That's why I don't like calling, except in pocket pairs or purely speculative hands.
Hello, Fabricio. Your thought also makes sense. NH!