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Pot
Odds
Pot odds are an important consideration in poker of
all types, not just Texas Hold ‘Em. While the most advanced of pot odds
would be implied odds, a more expert skill, pot odds work on every poker
game to help minimize losses from bad play and maximize profits by only
chasing those hands that will pay off accordingly. While every poker
game does use pot odds, it is still most common with Texas Hold ‘Em
because having the shared board allows for more chasing strategy, since
the board serves every hand.
These examples will be for Texas Hold 'Em since it gives the simplest
examples to explain. Pot odds are hard for some players because you are
using more than one set of numbers to come up with your conclusion. The
first set of numbers you need to figure out is your outs for the hand.
You will either divide your outs by 50 (pre-flop), 47 (after the flop),
or 46 (after the turn). This percentage is your chance of making a
winning hand.
The next step is to compare your chance of making
your hand versus the size of the pot. If your chance of winning is much
better than the bet to pot ratio, then those are good pot odds. What
does this mean? To figure out the ratio, look at the pot. If the pot
is $100, and someone bets $10, then the bet to pot ratio is 1/10.
Basically you want your chance of winning to be well over 1/10 to call
this bet. Suppose you have A-10 hearts, and the board is J hearts, Q
hearts, 9 spades, 2 clubs. In this situation any heart or king gives
you a winning hand, and probably any ace. This means that there are 9
hearts, 4 jacks, and 3 aces to help you, or 16 cards out of 46 that will
help you. That’s about 35%, or better than 1/3. If there is $100 pot
and that one player bets $10, that means you can risk $10 to win $110,
or 1/11. Since 1/3 is much better than 1/11, this is a great time to
call the bet.
Those are pot odds. They are the comparing of your
chances of winning the pot versus the reward the pot offers. To give a
situation of bad pot odds: suppose you have A-3 of clubs on the board is
K clubs, Q spades, 7 spades, 2 hearts. There is a $100 pot and a player
raises it by $10. In this situation, only an ace will help you, but an
ace of spades gives a possible flush. So only two cards in the deck
will help you (and this is even assuming no one else has an ace with a
high kicker). So at best 2 out of 46 cards will help you, or 1/23. The
bet to pot ratio is once again 1/11. This means that this would be a
terrible call to make since 1/23 is much worse than 1/11.
If you want to be a serious poker player you will
need to become very good with pot odds since these will dictate when you
should call or when you should run. Get used to these before going to
the tables, and you will be a much happier player afterwards!
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