"I had implied odds"

I'm playing a lot more NLHE ring now and frankly, I don't know why I didn't focus on this game a couple years ago. You can punish the fish faster in this game than any other.

At my last live 1/2 ring game, there were at least 4 super fish that thought that they were good. Check out this play by one of them who I'll call NY:

UTG raises to $10 and NY re-raises to $40 in MP with about $400 behind. Then, a very tight player makes it $80 in LP with $120 behind. All fold and MP calls. The flop is rags and MP check-folds.

NY is sitting directly to my right and begins to explain his thinking to me quietly. "See, I had 99 there and I called the $40 knowing that if I hit a set I'd take his whole stack, so I had implied odds."

I just nodded my head up and down. You certainly don't want to educate players at the table. He had implied odds alright, but they sucked. He's calling $40 to potentially win $120 so he's only getting 3 to 1. I think a good rule of thumb is that you need at least 10 to 1 implied odds. Of course, don't re-raise with 99 like that, just call and try to flop a set.