Pots Odds Explained

Pot odds is one of the few basic skills all players should learn when playing poker and is essentially a fundamentals of the game. It’s using a risk vs. Reward ration to determine if the odds of making your hand will justify the call.

Calculating pot odds is done by taking the number of cards seen and the number of cards unseen and comparing it to how much money you will need to put into the pot. You always want your actual pot odds to be greater than your odds of making your hand in order to call. This allows you to maximize your winnings when going for the risk.

An easy example would be your holding a nut flush straight draw with your opponent bets $10 on the flop into a pot that already holds $60. You count your outs which total 9 suited cards that will complete your straight and 8 cards that will make your straight minus the two which are of the same suit leaving you with 6 cards. Total outs are 15 or a ratio of 15/45 giving you 1:3. You will need to put in $10 into a pot totalling $70 giving you 1:7 on your return. What do you do? Call!

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Now if we flip it and instead you are drawing to a gut shot straight your odds would look something like this. If you were holding T-8 and the flop read 7-2-J your hand will only complete with a 9 leaving you with 4 outs. The ratio of outs vs. unseen cards would then be 4/45 giving you a 1:11 shot at making that hand. The pot odds are still the same but now your decision would be to fold since the odds given by the pot are significantly lower than your actual odds at making the straight. The odds tell you that you will win once every 11 times played at a cost of $10 each round. Add it up and over the long run you will win $60 for every $110 spent trying to win that hand. This is how playing with odds in your favour will win or save your more money over the long run.