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Many people feel intimidated by the idea of calculating pot odds. You don’t need to be a mathematician to use pot odds in your poker strategy. You will find poker odds to be helpful when playing poker online as well. I’m going to show you a simple way to think about odds, and how to use them while you’re playing. Then, I’ll go a bit deeper and explain how these odds are calculated and some other considerations.
First, here are some points to note:
- Get used to using odds instead of percentages. Percentages may seem more intuitive at first, but odds give you a quicker and easier way to compare your chances of winning versus the pot size. To convert a percentage to odds use this equation: (100-%)/%. For example, 20% chance to win would be, (100–20)/20 = 4, so the odds are 4:1.
- The odds I show for drawing hands, are the odds for making your hand on the NEXT card only. You’ll see some literature that show much smaller odds than these when you’re on the flop, because you have two cards to come. Don’t use these odds. Stick with odds for one card to come. The main reason is because you don’t know yet what will happen on the next round which may change the situation causing you to not see the river card.
I’ll start by listing the only odds you need to memorize to get started. (If you want to see the math behind these numbers, read the last section, at the bottom of this page.)
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11:1 – Inside straight draw (4 outs)
5:1 – Open-ended straight draw (8 outs)
4:1 – Flush draw (9 outs)
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If you read my ”ABC” Poker section, you’ll remember that one of the rules of playing “ABC” poker is to pay for a draw only when you have the odds to justify the call. The odds listed above show how much the pot needs to be laying you to make a profitable call.
For example, if there is $24 in the pot, and it costs you $2 to call when you have an inside straight draw, you can correctly call because you are getting 12 to 1 (which is more than the 11 to 1 that you need). On average, if you were to make this same play 12 times, you would miss your straight 11 times (losing $22), and you would make your straight once (winning $24). When you add them up, you are in the positive by $2, so it is a profitable call.
If you’re playing limit Hold’em, there is an easy way to count and keep track of the current pot odds. Instead of counting the money in the pot, count the number of bets that go into the pot. Then, on the turn, divide that number by two (because of the big bet size is double the small bet size). Get into the habit of counting the bets as they go into the pot on every hand. It will become second nature after a while.
For example, four players (including you) paid one bet each to see the flop. Your running total is 4 so far. On the flop, the first guy bets and everyone else folds to you. The pot odds are now 5 to 1 (because there are 5 bets in the pot and it costs you 1 to call). You have an open-end straight draw, so you can call. The total is now 6 bets. Now, divide that number by two, which brings your total to 3. The turn card doesn’t help you, and your opponent bets again, bringing the total to 4. You are now getting 4:1 pot odds, but you are a 5:1 underdog to make your hand, so you fold.
My method of considering pot odds is a bit over-simplistic. When drawing to a non-nut hand (flush or straight), there’s the small possibility that you complete your hand, but still lose to a bigger hand. There’s also what’s know as implied odds, which is the total of the current pot odds plus any additional bets you’ll make on future rounds if you do make your hand. These two situations pretty much cancel each other out, so you will do fine by keeping it simple and just using the current pot odds to base your decision.
Pot odds and implied odds get more complicated and misleading once you get into no-limit games or tournaments. In no-limit, you never know how big a raise may come after your play. On the other hand, you have much bigger implied odds, because you can win a lot more money if you make your hand. In tournaments, pot odds are not the only consideration. Sometimes it is best to forfeit a hand, even if you have favorable pot odds.
For a more in depth discussion on pot odds, implied odds, and effective odds, make sure to read chapters 5-7 of David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker.
How to calculate odds from the number of outs you have.
These odds show a comparison of the number of bad cards to the number of helpful cards that remain in the deck. So, if you have a flush draw on the flop, then you’ve seen 4 cards of the suit you need. Every suit has 13 cards, so there are 9 remaining cards that will complete your flush. That means that you have 9 outs.
You have seen 5 cards so far (2 pockets and 3 on the board). There are 47 remaining cards in the deck (52-5=47). 9 of these remaining cards will help you, and 38 will not (47-9=38). The odds are the comparison of those two numbers, 38 to 9. When you reduce this down (by dividing 38 by 9), you get 4.22. That’s how we get our estimate of 4:1 odds for a flush draw. That means you are about a 4 to 1 underdog to make your flush on the next card.
On the turn, you will have seen 6 cards, so there are now 46 cards remaining. Do the same calculation as before, substituting 46 for 47, and you’ll end up with odds of 4.11 to 1. So your odds actually got a little bit better, because there is one less bad card in the deck. All the odds shown above are approximations anyway, so you can use the same odds for the flop and the turn.
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