Pot Odds

Mathematics is critical to the success of a poker player. To be successful, over time, at poker you need to be able to calculate pot odds as well as how to use them in your game. Many new poker players think that poker is all about bluffing and reading other players. While these are important skills to have, you can not be successful, in the long term, without a good foundation in the mathematics of the game.

Understanding Pot Odds

Understanding pot odds will help you to make good sound decisions at the Bulldog 777 poker table. Pot odds are the comparison between the odds of you making a winning hand and the amount of money, in the pot, that you will win if you do. So you must be able to keep track of how much money is in the pot and this is actually pretty easy to do. You also need to be able to calculate the odds of making your hand and this is actually not difficult to do either, and gets easier with practice.

Calculating Pot Odds

First off you have to know how to calculate the odds of making your hand and the best way to explain that to you is with an example. In this example that we are going to use, after the turn, you have a 9? and a 10? in your hand. The board has a 2?, 8?, J?, and a K?. You have an open ended 4 card straight. Open ended means that the card on either end would make your hand and a gut shot draw would mean that you needed a card somewhere in the middle of the straight. Of course, with an open ended straight you have more “outs”. OK let’s figure out the odds of making your straight on the river. The deck has 52 cards in it. You know what 6 of them are, the two in your hand and the 4 on the board. That leaves 46 unseen cards. You need a 7 or a Queen. Now there are 3 remaining 7’s and 3 remaining queens in the 46 unseen cards and any one of them would make your hand, so that means that you have 6 “outs”. To calculate the odds of one of those 6 outs coming on the river, you take the 46 unseen cards and divide them by the 6 outs and you come up with 7.67. Subtract 1 and you come up with a 6.67 to 1 chance that you will make your straight on the river.

If after the turn card a player bets $5 and you need to call in order to draw for your straight, which you will make 1 out of every 6.67 times that you tried, you need to see how much money is in the pot to determine if making the call is a mathematically sound decision. So, multiply 6.67 times $5 and you come up with $33.35. If the pot contains more than $33.35 then the pot odds are in your favor to make the call. If the pot contains less than $33.35 then the pot odds are against you.