Pot Odds

These are the magic words that alot of people tend to use when they have sucked out on your hand with a limited out hand or a marginal hand..

What are pot odds... how do you work them out..
Pot Odds are not as most would have you believe, Throwing money into the pot becasue you have an Ace or an overcard... It is actually the fact that you have "The Better Odds" at winning the Pot with Your Hand.

Well there are many ways to do this, I am going to describe a very quick and easy method as simple advise.

To work out the POT ODDS you firstly have to cosider your OUTS (how many cards will give you The winning hand).. For example you have KQ off suit and the flop is 8 10 J.. you have an open ended straight draw and therefore any 9 or A on the turn or river will give you the winning hand..

So let us also say that the person betting only has a J.. therefore you now have any 9 A K or Q.. your odds for the outs have increased..

To figure out the Outs simply add all the cards needed to win multiplied by the number of the cards in the pack... eg 4x9 4xA3xK 3xQ therefore you have 14 Outs.... as if any 1 of those cards hit the turn or river you will win. (Only covering this briefly as most of the Players will already understand this).

To work out the POT ODDS from this hand simply multiplay the outs at theFlop by 4

So you now have 14 x 4 = 56 therefore you have a 56 % chance of winning this hand..

No to put that into the Pot... if there is say $100 in the pot and the person holding the J bets $50.. you are being asked tocall a bet of $50 to see the next card.. so put this into an equation.

100 (pot) + 50 (their bet) = 150 (NewPot) so therefore you arebeing asked to put in $50 or 1/3rd (33%) of the pot... with a 56% chance of winning the hand. The odds are in your favor to win the pot so it is worth it.

If a 5 card hits the turn after calling you have to re-evaluate the Odds.. To do this you simply work out the OUTS and this time multiply by 2. So therefore your odds of winning this hand are now 14 x 2= 28%. So any bet that is made must therefore be less then your odds of winning foryou to continue with your POT ODDS call.

eg.. the pot is now $200 the Person with The J bets 50 again your odds are:

200 + 50 = 250 Therefore a call of $50 is 25% of the pot and the odds are correct.

However if he is betting 200, your odds are now:

200 + 200 = 400.. a call of $200 is 50% ofthepot and your Pot Odds are Now reduced..


As I stated this is avery simple way to calculate Pot Odds sowhen you state it next time You may very well bequoting fact and not fiction.