I just got a PM from a member that asked a good question about one of my videos so I thought I'd share it as I think it might be helpful to others as well:


Very good question - it has to do with something called "reverse implied odds". Most people understand the term implied odds - for example when you have a flush draw and are facing a bet on the turn your odds are usually better than the actual pot odds because if you hit your flush on the river you can on average win some money from your opponent. So even if the pot odds are 25% and your equity is something like 20% you are still often correct to call if you know you'll win money on the river.

Reverse implied odds, on the other hand, is when you have a weak made hand and are facing a bet where it is implied that your opponent will bet more on a later street. For example, you have 55 on a Qs 10s 3h 4d board and your opponent bets 75 into a 100 dollar pot. You think he's value betting a pair of Q's or better but also has a lot of flush draws/straight draws that he's betting. So based on pot odds you only need 30% to call turn and let's say you run Pokerstove and find that you think you have 35% so it looks like a call.

However, you know he's aggressive so he's very likely to barrel the river with a lot of missed draws but still value bet his strong hands. So let's say a complete blank hits the river - something like an offsuit 7. The pot is now 250 and he bets 185 - again you need 30% equity to call. You run pokerstove again and figure that he'll probably give up with some air hands but is probably gonna fire some missed spade draws. Your best guess is that you probably have around 35% equity again - so again it looks like a clear river call. Both the turn and river decisions in a vacuum are +ev so overall it looks like a good play.

The key factor though, is that when facing the bet on the turn you know you're up against an aggro player that is going to continue bluffing a good amount on the river, so you are facing an implied river bet, which you should factor into your decision on the turn just the same as you would factor in getting paid off with your flush draw on the river when you were the one drawing.

So if you factored in the 185 you had to call on the river into your turn decision, you would be calling (75+185)=260 on the turn instead of just the 75 dollar turn bet. The total implied pot would be (100 + 75 + 75 + 185 + 185) = 620, so taking reverse implied odds into account you would need 42% equity to call turn and river, and you only have 35% so you're losing money calling both barrels.

This is a simplified view because there are so many different variables - your opponent is going to have a very different bluff frequency on different river cards and you'll have different equity against his range as well depending on what river card hits. But the gist of it remains the same - if you know you're going to be facing a river barrel a lot and you have a marginally + ev call on the turn often it's best to just fold instead of call turn and call river.

Hope that makes it more clear.