How To Calculate Pot Odds
- Pot Odds are simply the price that the pot is giving us to call right now, based on how much it is to stay in the pot and how much the pot will be after calling. Example: The pot is 50. Your opponent bets another 50, so there is now 100 in the pot. It is 50 to call, so we are getting pot odds of 100-50, or simply 2-1 to call.
- In the seventh lesson of the 'From Zero to Poker Hero' free poker course you will learn what are pot odds and outs in poker. You will learn how to calculate.
Using The 'Outs' To Calculate Texas Hold'em Poker Odds We have already determined that you have nine 'outs'. Now there are 52 cards in a deck and two of those are in your hand, leaving 50. Poker equity is your portion of the pot based on the odds that you will win the pot. To calculate your equality, simply multiply your outs by four on the flop and multiply by two on the turn. The calculations will get better with time and practice. See More Texas Hold’em Guides.
Explanation and Calculating Pot Odds
When first learning the game of poker, it is in the best interest of a player to study and learn as many different basic strategies as possible. Strategies such as starting hands, position, betting, poker outs and pot odds are the first strategies a player should learn, as it will save them the most money and help put a buffer on their learning curve. Out of all of these strategies, pot odds will be one of the most important tools a player will learn how to use. And the reasoning for this is, is because this tool can be combined with the knowledge of counting outs and expected value so that a player can make an educated play that is based on the likelihood of them catching one of their outs verses how much they will pay to try and do so. So, what are pot odds? Well, in a nutshell pot odds is the amount of money that is currently in the pot in comparison to how much a player will have to pay to potentially win that pot. To put this into perspective, a few different examples have been provided below.
Examples of Calculating Pot Odds
For this example Player A, Player B, Player C, and Player D have all just been dealt cards in a $100/$200 Texas Hold’em ring game with Player A on the small blind and Player B on the big blind. Player C decides to fold, Player D limps in for $200, Player A calls for $100 more and Player B checks his option. There is a total of $600 in the pot and 3 players are going to see a flop. After seeing the flop Player A and Player B both decide to check their hands. Player C thinks for a moment and decides to put in a minimum bet of $200. Now, this is where most players will need to use the knowledge of pot odds. There is a total of $800 in the pot, $600 from pre-flop and the $200 from Player C and now Player A needs to decide if to make the call or not. What are the pot odds offering him? As we said above, pot odds are the money in the pot in comparison to what it takes to win the pot. So in this case, the pot odds look like this:
How To Calculate Pot Odds In Texas Holdem
- $800 in the pot to $200 to call
To make things easier, it is much better to simplify the odds. So this would actually be simplified to 4 to 1. After calculating the pot odds, Player A decides to make the call. Now there is $1,000 in the pot and it is Player B’s turn to call. What are his odds?
- $1,000 in the pot to $200 to call
And again, this is better simplified which would equal 5 to 1.
One of the first and most important examples of 'poker math' that new no-limit hold'em players need to learn is how to calculate 'pot odds.' In fact, when people talk about the 'math of poker,' a lot of the time they are mostly referring to pot odds and how an understanding of them can help you decide whether to bet, raise, call, or fold.
Put most simply, pot odds represents the ratio between what you stand to gain in a hand of poker and what you have to spend in order to get it — that is, the ratio between your reward and your risk when making any given decision during a poker hand.
Calculating Pot Odds
For example, if there is $80 in the pot and your opponent bets $20, that makes a total of $100 in the middle. That $100 is the reward you can get if you're willing to risk $20 to call the bet. Pot odds are expressed as a ratio (reward-to-risk). In this case you're having to risk $20 to win $100, so your pot odds are 100-to-20, or 5-to-1.
That's the scenario poker players most often describe when talking about pot odds — that is, when facing a bet and deciding whether or not to call or fold. You add the amount of the bet to what is already in the pot to calculate the reward, the bet you need to call represents the risk, and the pot odds 'being given' to call is that reward-to-risk ratio.
Of course, you can also talk about pot odds after a player raises. Say you decide not just to call that $20 bet described above, but to raise to $80. That would mean your opponent has to call $60 to have a chance at winning what is now $180 in the middle — 180-to-60 or 3-to-1 pot odds.
That might seem simple enough — a little bit of addition and an easy division problem, and you can calculate pot odds.
But why bother? There are lots of reasons.
One big reason why you want to stay generally aware of what your pot odds are — which means keeping track of how big the pot is at all times and being able to compare the pot size to each bet — is that doing so helps you estimate whether or not the pot odds being offered to you are favorable or unfavorable given the situation.
Pot Odds Example
Let's look at three common circumstances in no-limit hold'em in which pot odds can be helpful when making decisions.
Using Pot Odds When Playing a Drawing Hand
Say you are on a flush draw and have with the board showing . There is $120 in the pot, and your opponent has bet $60. You could call to see the river card, but are the pot odds favorable enough for you to make the call?
It's easy enough to see that the reward is $180 ($120 in the pot plus the $60 bet), and so with a $60 risk you are getting 180-to-60 or 3-to-1 pot odds. Is that good or bad?
You believe you probably have to make a flush in order to make a better hand than your opponent's, so that means you have nine outs — the nine remaining clubs — to make your hand. You can see six cards (the two in your hand plus the four on the board), leaving 46 unknown cards, so you can estimate your chance of seeing a club fall on the river to be 9 out of 46, or just over 4-to-1 against.
How To Calculate Pot Odds Texas Hold'em
Compare your pot odds (3-to-1 to call) to the odds you'll make your flush (a little worse than 4-to-1 against). It's clear that calling isn't such a good choice — that the pot odds aren't favorable for calling — because over the long term calling is not a profitable play.
Let's say you were to make this call 100 times. About 20 times you'd make your flush on the river (actually a little less, but we'll round it up). You'd be risking $60 x 100 or $6,000. But your reward would only be $180 x 20 or $3,600. After making this call 100 times and winning only 20 hands, you'd have lost $2,400! (Note: we aren't considering what extra money might be won or lost after the river card, but just the profitability of this particular turn call.)
Pot odds are favorable when they are greater than the odds against making your hand. If the pot odds were 5-to-1 here, it would be a good call with it being just over 4-to-1 against making the flush. But 3-to-1 pot odds are unfavorable when drawing one card to make a flush.
Using Pot Odds to Decide Whether to Call a Preflop Raise
Pot odds can also be compared not just to a specific probability (like drawing to a flush), but also to a more general estimate of your chances in a hand.
Say for example you're playing $1/$2 no-limit hold'em and get dealt in the big blind. A player raises to $7 from the button and it folds to you.
First off... what are your pot odds here? There is $10 in the middle (the $1 small blind + the $2 big blind + the $7 raise), and you have to call $5 to stay in the hand. That's 2-to-1 pot odds.
Now, think about the prospect of playing out of position. It's a hand without a lot of potential that is almost certainly worse than whatever the player on the button who raised has. Unless you flop a couple of diamonds or perhaps trips or two pair, you're not likely to feel good about going very far with this hand. Are these 2-to-1 odds favorable?
No, they aren't. You could quantify this perhaps, noting how you with two suited cards you flop a flush draw about 11% of the time, you flop two pair about 2% of the time, and you flop trips about 1.3% of the time — that adds up to around 14% good flops, meaning it's worse than 6-to-1 against your seeing a good flop. That's just an estimate, really, but is obviously way worse than the 2-to-1 pot odds, so folding is in order.
What if a player raises to $7 from early position and five other players including the small blind call before the action reaches you in the big blind with your ? Now there's $44 in the middle and you have to pay $5 to see the flop. Those are almost 8-to-1 pot odds, which are in fact greater than the odds against your flopping something good — you might consider calling.
Using Pot Odds to Decide Whether to Call a Suspected Bluff
Pot odds can also be relevant when deciding whether or not to call what you think might be an opponent's bluff.
You've reached the river with your and the board shows . Your opponent raised before the flop and you called, and you called his bets on both the flop and turn. Now there's $100 in the middle and he's betting $50, giving you 3-to-1 pot odds to call.
You suspect strongly he could be bluffing, but you think it's possible he might have something like aces, kings, jacks, ace-queen, or king-queen and have you beat. While it's not feasible to calculate exactly the likelihood he's bluffing, you might be able to make a rough estimate — say, that he's probably bluffing at least a third of the time here.
That would make it 2-to-1 against your tens being best, making 3-to-1 pot odds favorable for you — a profitable call to make.
Conclusion
There are many other applications of pot odds in no-limit hold'em, but you can't take advantage of them until you start to become comfortable figuring out pot odds as a hand is playing out.
This is often easier to do when playing online poker, where the betting amounts and pot sizes are shown as numbers. But even when playing live, you can with practice become increasingly at ease keeping track of what's in the pot and calculating pot odds until it becomes second nature to you.
And once you do, you can then use pot odds to help direct your decision-making in a variety of contexts.
Also in this series...
How To Calculate Pot Odds In Poker
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How To Calculate Pot Odds In Poker
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