Who is Who Carol Lopez

Like any other gambling game, poker is a game of risks versus rewards. Any decision you make at the poker table can be thought of as a comparison of the risk involved in a particular play and the possible reward for the play. There are three questions involved in arriving at a decision: How great is the risk? How great is the reward? Is the reward great enough to justify the risk? When deciding whether to bluff, your risk is a bet.

 

Your reward is the pot (as well as advertising value if you show the bluff). When deciding whether to bet a mediocre hand before all the cards are out, you risk a bet. If successful, your reward (when your opponent doesn’t simply fold) is that you didn’t give a lesser hand a free card to outdraw you.

 

Take all these factors together, and then think twice, and you will fi nd yourself amazed at the number of times this happens. The tendency is to drop horses in class when they’ve had an apparent stinker. Sometimes this drop is over the top. Finally, because of the previous finishing position, the odds are most likely to be exaggerated whatever the real chance of the horses.