Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
I hardly do any concious mental math at the table.

-'rilla
That's because you don't need to. The real way is to count your outs, count the % chance to hit your draw and the pot %. By pot % I mean the percentage of the pot your call will be. Also, do partial odds by putting your opponent on a range of hands. Sometimes you want to know the pot odds + chance of hitting on the next cards and then adjust for implied odds.

What happens is that after a few times, you'll calculate the pot odds and you'll see your chance of winning the hand HAS to be a lot higher than that without actually multiplying it out. Then you can call.

Although in a lot of situations it's better to raise :)

I use math all the time, but the more experience you have, the less need for it you have. But when you know you're 40% against two overcards and your pot odds are laying you a little better than that, you can call an all-in with say J9s because you know it's an EV+ move with 5 cards to come even if your opponent has two overcards. This makes a really hard decision easier. When you really need to think for a while and the decision is close, this is what you have to do.

If you always just go by "your read" you'll find your decisions will happen to be incorrect when you calculate the odds. Too many times it is very tempting to chase the gutshot, when you REALLY don't have the odds for it and implied odds can't possibly compensate. This is what makes all your decisions easy. 'Rilla played so much he already knows most of the correct decisions.