How To Use Pot Odds To Improve Your Game
Winning at poker isn’t just about going in with a kick ass hand. It’s about bankroll management, strategy, and probabilities. When you hear about somebody consistently pulling down pots and coming out on top over the the long haul, it’s a good bet they know how to calculate pot odds. Today, we’re going to give you a quick primer.
What follows is not meant to be a comprehensive course. We don’t have enough room here. If you’d like to see an in-depth treatment, read this article on pot odds. You can also read an overview of poker odds. In the meantime, here are the basics…
Common Terms Used
You’ll hear a couple of common phrases thrown around when folks talk about poker odds and probabilities. So, let’s clear up the confusion by defining them.
Outs - The number of available cards that can improve your hand.
Pot Odds – A value that represents the size of the current pot versus your call.
A lot of good poker players will also mention implied odds, bet odds, and other terms. But, we’re keeping things simple today.
A Little Pot Odds Math
For those of you who flunked math in school, now’s the time to learn. Unless you plan to always go into the turn on a wing and a prayer, you’re going to need to perform a little math in your head. This is what the pros do. Here’s an example of how pot odds work (and again, we’re keeping it simple):
Let’s suppose your hole cards are king queen suited. The flop is showing a jack, ten, and four with 1 of your suit. You’ve got a drawing hand. It’s not necessarily strong, but if the turn or river bring a ace or nine, you’ll make your straight.
First, let’s determine your outs to the nuts. There are 4 aces and 4 nines out there. So, you have 8 ‘nut’ outs. Double that number and add one. That gives you 17. That means there is roughly a 17% chance of pulling an out on the turn and another 17% chance to hit on the river. Of course the nut outs could change on the turn but for now this is what we have. A king or a queen might also be an out, but this is not guaranteed as someone easily could have a hand like queen jack.
Now, let’s calculate your pot odds. Suppose there’s $20 in the pot and the bet coming at you is $4. Add them together to get $24. Then, divide the call by that amount. In other words, divide $4 by $24. Your pot odds would be 16.67%.
As a general rule of thumb, if your chance of pulling an out is higher than your pot odds, call. If not, fold. In the example above, 17% is obviously higher than 16.67%, so you should call.
You might be thinking to yourself, “I’m not gonna do that each time the bet’s coming at me. That’s too much work!” First, if you don’t do it, you’ll be at the mercy of the players who do. Second, after you get used to calculating pot odds, it’ll come naturally to you.
To get some practice, visit Bodog.com and open an account. It’s a great learning environment because the traffic is consistent and the skill level at a lot of the tables is pretty low. You can also read our Bodog Poker review.
Once you learn how to figure out your pot odds, you’ll have a distinct edge over other players who refuse to do the math.
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