Knowing pot odds is a fundamental concept of poker. Before you sit down at any poker table, its essential that you have an understanding of pot odds to help you decide whether or not you should play those tricky drawing hands.
PokerZone defines pot odds as:
The ratio of the amount of money actually in the pot compared to the amount of money required to call and maintain eligibility to win the pot, expressed with the pot amount first and calling amount second. Sometimes improperly used as a synonym for pot equity or expected value. Different from implied odds because pot odds do not account for wagers that might be expected in later betting rounds or from players in later positions.
In other words, pot odds are the odds you need to justify making a call with a drawing hand based on the money already in the pot.
Calculating Pot Odds
Say you are holding 8 ♠ 9 ♠. The flop comes out 10 ♦ 5 ♠ J ♥.
Here is how to calculate your pot odds:
Count the number of “outs” you have. An out is a card that will improve your had sufficiently to win the pot. In this case, you have eight outs: four 7s and four Queens. Either will give you a straight.
Take your number of outs, multiply it by two, and then add one to give you an approximate percent chance of hitting your next card. In this case, (8×2)+1=17. You have approximately a 17% chance of hitting your cards.
To justify a call based on that percentage, you must assume that if you catch your straight you will win, but lose otherwise. In other words, the amount you call must be less than 17% of the pot to justify that call.
Add the amount of the current pot + the bet to determine the maximum bet you can call. For example, if the pot is $90 and it is only $10 to call, the pot + bet = $100. In this case, the bet is only 10% of the pot ($10/$100), and the percentage of hitting your hand is 17%. These are good odds.
Not too hard, right?
Implied Odds
Implied odds are kind of a crapshoot, as they take into account future bets. In other words, they are an estimation of how much money you can win if you hit one of your outs and complete your drawing hand.
In the above example, if you hit your straight on the turn, your implied odds would be the amount of money you can get from your opponent on the turn and the river.
Pot odds do not take into account future rounds of betting—only the amount of money currently in the pot.
Basically, the line of thinking is: “If I hit my straight (or whatever you are going after), I know I can extract a lot of chips, therefore, even though I might not have great pot odds, the expected payout will be worth seeing another card.” With implied odds, you should take into account the playing style of your opponent. If you are up against a calling station, a.k.a. a loose-passive player (LP), you might call with poor pot odds because you know you will reap a big reward if you complete your draw.
Good or Bad Implied Odds?
There are hands with good implied odds and bad implied odds. It makes sense that a flush is a hand with bad implied odds because having three or more cards of the same suit on the board is very obvious. In other words, players might suspect you hit your flush, so they will be wary to pay you off.
On the other hand, straights and sets are hands with good implied odds. Say you call with pocket 2s. The flop comes A-K-7. Your opponent makes a bet and you call. The turn comes a 2. It’s very hard for your opponent to put you on trip 2s, or any set for that matter, so you might be in for a big payoff. The same is true for some straights, particularly if you catch your gutshot straight draw. However, you will have poor implied pot odds if there are four cards to a straight on the board.
Calculating Implied Odds
You cannot calculate how much you are going to win with your implied odds, but you can calculate how much you need to win to justify calling.
Let’s say you have an open-ended straight draw and you want to calculate the implied odds to see one more card on the turn. Your opponent bets $10 into a $10 pot. You must call $10 to win a $20 pot.
As per the ratio odds chart, our odds of completing your draw: 4.9:1
Calculate your pot odds: 2:1
Draw odds – pot odds = implied odds. 4.9 – 2 = 2.9
Your required implied odds ratio is 2.9:1. Multiply 2.9 by the $10 bet to get $29. You need to extract $29 during the remainder of the hand to justify calling.
Conclusion
It’s important to be aware of your outs, percentages and pot odds when playing NL Texas Hold’em. Implied odds are not as important to calculate, but you should know which types of hands have the best implied odds.
Still, even when the odds are stacked against you, sometimes you just have to go with your gut.
Has there ever been a time you neglected pot odds and trusted your gut instincts? Did it pay off?
Do you want to become a better poker player? Learn the 6 things you need to do to win heads up!
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