(Edit: Please credit this shortcut to Phil Gordon as he is the one who came up with it and shared it with the poker world.)
A poker math geek gave me the following formula to use as an estimation.
(Edit: The credit for this shortcut goes to Phil Gordon and is known as the Gordon Pair Principle.)
Let's say you have 55
:
Work out how many pairs are higher than your pair -
66
,77
,88
,99
,10
,JJ
,QQ
,KK
,AA
= 9 pairs leftCount how many players are left = 8
Multiply
higher pairs
byplayers left
and divide by 2
So in the above example, with 55
and 8 players left:
(9 x 8) / 2 = 36% chance of at least one of the remaining players having a higher pocket pair
Say you have 99
on the button and it's folded to you:
- 5 pairs left
- 2 players left
(5 x 2) / 2 = 5%
chance of at least one of the remaining players having a higher pocket pair