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Understanding Basic Pot Odds in Poker

November 21, 2008

Undeniably one of the most crucial strategies in poker would be the understanding of “Pot odds” in poker. In any form of texas hold’em especially tournament or cash game play can be very different yet very much alike. Pot odds are nothing more than a simple gauge for estimating your return on an investment in a poker hand. In this article we are going to concentrate on the tournament side of the coin. Let’s say you are investing in a commodity, say soybeans that continually returns seventy-five cents on every dollar you have to recognize if you keep making that investment you will go broke. But if your soybeans consistently return a buck-and-quarter for every dollar you put in them, you are going to make a lot of money. That same mindset is used for Pot odds in poker.

Like our soybean analogy, poker hands are high-risk investments also, with no guaranteed return. For example, a flop comes down with two spades and you have AK of Spades, you don’t have anything but an Ace high right now, but if any spade comes up you will have the nut flush. So if someone before you bets you must decide if it is worth the investment. All you have in your hand is potential and if you have been playing long enough most of the time a flush doesn’t materialize. For you to call a bet, I extremely go against raising in this position, because you bring luck into the equation more than strategy, you have to decide if the Pot odds are in your favor to call. For your call to be profitable, the pots you win when you do make your flush have to pay enough for you to cover all those times your flush doesn’t come and then some for you to profit. If you don’t make enough when you hit your flush to cover your prior losses you’ll lose money like all bad investors.

Pot odds are simply the ratio of the amount of money in the pot (potential return) to the cost of a call (potential investment). Let’s use another example, you have A 4 spades and this time the flop comes down Q-9-2, with only one card being a spade. Neither player bets on the flop, you bet hoping to take the pot down right there, but both the players call. On the turn comes a King of spades, making the board Q-9-2-Kwith two spades, giving you four cards to a possible nut flush. Let’s say the first player bets and the second raises all-in.
At this point, all you have is a nut flush draw. You are certain at this point that you are beat my both players. With only one card to come, and if that card is not a spade, you know you won’t win this hand with an ace high. If an ace comes on the river you might have top pair but one of your opponents might have A-K or A-Q and that could cost you a lot of money. So in retracing this hand the only logical way to look at it would be that have to have a spade to win. So the question you have to ask yourself. Do I call an all-in bet for a nut flush and is that a good investment?

This is a math problem pure and simple and the first step to answering the question is pot odds. Again the pot odds are the ratio of the amount of money in the pot to the cost of the call. If the size of the pot is $1000 and it is $100 to call the pot odds are 10 to 1. Just remember if you plan on playing recreationally or gambling professionally, the understanding of pot odds is very important if you want the numbers to fall your way. You will be doing simple mathematics like this in every hand you play and the more hands you play the better you get at understanding the nuances of pot odds.

Read more of our poker strategy articles below:

Understanding Implied Odds in Poker

Understanding Odds and Outs in Poker

Understanding Expected Value (EV)

Written by Rob · Filed Under Bad Beat Strategy 

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