Pot odds!?

[jonnyboy151]

I've been playing poker amongst friends for a few months now but we've played fairly frequently. I'm at a stage where i've got the fundamentals down and want to start improving. I thought a good place to start would be understanding pot odds so if anybody would care to explain this to me, i'd really appreciate it. I google'd pot odd's and read a few explainations but since it's obviously such easy stuff for the authors they seems to be overcomplicating it. I've got an idea, but a concise explaination would go some way to clearing things up.

Also if anybody has any tips or pointers for someone at my level who's up for improving, as well as any good books or websites, feel free to let me know.

Cheers,

Jonny.

 

[strongbower]

I've been playing poker amongst friends for a few months now but we've played fairly frequently. I'm at a stage where i've got the fundamentals down and want to start improving. I thought a good place to start would be understanding pot odds so if anybody would care to explain this to me, i'd really appreciate it. I google'd pot odd's and read a few explainations but since it's obviously such easy stuff for the authors they seems to be overcomplicating it. I've got an idea, but a concise explaination would go some way to clearing things up.

Also if anybody has any tips or pointers for someone at my level who's up for improving, as well as any good books or websites, feel free to let me know.

Cheers,

Jonny.

I have been studying poker for what must be close to 6 years as a professional and pot odds is said to be the most fundamental part of poker. I agree with this and it is important that you do look into pot odds but it is important not to turn into a poker textbook when it comes to playing by pot odds.

The fundamental idea is to look at the pot size before you call a bet and compare it to your hand. Do you want to lump in $100 to win a $25 pot on a hand that your only 60% sure will take the pot down? Its just common sense really in controlling how much money your willing to put into pot after a large bet or raise. E.g 2x the pot.

When it comes to pot odds books or websites, they all bombard you with loads of mathematical figures that are useless when it comes down to real play.

 

[tosborn]

There is an article section to this forum. Click the poker articles tab at the top of the screen to get to the many articles that have been archived here.

Alternatively you can click this link "Pot Odds". Keep in mind the above post when reading through the article. In my opinion, pot odds is way more valuable in limit hold'em. In No Limit "Implied Odds" mean as much if not more than pot odds.

Read through all the articles and you'll be well on your way to understanding the basics of poker.

 

[royalburrito24]

Pot odds is the ratio of the amount that is in the pot to the amount that you are putting in, Lets say the pot is 100, and your opponenet bets 25, the total pot is now 125. But since you are dealing with pot odds you have to imagine that your bet is put into the middle as well, so now the total pot would be 150. Now you are putting 25 in to win 150, that is a ratio of 150-25 or 6-1.

 

[Tammy]

If you haven't already, I would recommend you read through all our articles on the subject.

Five Fundamentals of Poker - Poker Theory

Poker: Expected Value
Poker: Pot Odds & Implied Odds
Poker: Position
Poker: Pot Size
Poker: Equity

And:

Poker Odds for Dummies

 

[GunslingerZ]

Pot odds is the ratio of the amount that is in the pot to the amount that you are putting in, Lets say the pot is 100, and your opponenet bets 25, the total pot is now 125. But since you are dealing with pot odds you have to imagine that your bet is put into the middle as well, so now the total pot would be 150. Now you are putting 25 in to win 150, that is a ratio of 150-25 or 6-1.

This is incorrect. You DON'T include the amount of your call when determining what odds you are getting to make the call. In this example, if your opponent bets 25 into a pot of 100, then it costs you 25 to win 125, so you are getting 5:1 on your call. 5:1 odds means you have to win 1 time in 6 in order to break even, which is 16.6%. In order for your call to be profitable, you would have to win more than 16.6% of the time.

 

[jonnyboy151]

Expected value....pot odds....implied odds!!!

This is all going way over my head and i'm getting frustrated with myself. I've read through the five fundamentals of poker and i'm lost to be honest. Will someone please pretend they're explaining the above to a 5 year old and try again. Otherwise i'm back to blackjack.

By the way i'm not an idiot i understand the principle's of all the above, it's just how they are broken down and related to poker, i'm sure there must be a simpler way of explaining it.

Come on someone...

 

[i win sometimes]

i think the poker odds for dummies does an excellent job of explaining the concept behind pot odds.

 

[TurnipHead]

OK Jonny, I will try to explain in layman's terms. There are a few different ways to calculate pot odds so I will try to explain the most straightforward. For the time being forget the fancy suff like "implied odds" and "expected value".

I will try to explain how to calculate pot odds by using some classic examples and hopefully you will get the idea. Calculating pot odds generally comes into play on the turn and on the river:

EXAMPLE A
* You hold A and K of hearts.
* The flop comes down with 2 hearts meaning you need a heart to complete the flush.
* This means that a possibility of 9 cards could give you the flush (these are referred to as "outs"). So you have 9 outs.

Before the turn multiply these outs by 4 to give you the percentage chance of completing your hand by the river.

* 9 X 4 = 36. Therefore you have approximately 36% chance of hitting your flush by the river.

* If you miss the flush on the turn but are still in the hand for the river then:

Before the river multiply these outs by 2 to give you the percentage chance of completing your hand.

* 9 X 2 = 18. Therefore you have approximately 18% chance of hitting your flush on the river.


EXAMPLE B
* You hold a 6 and a 7.
* The flop comes down with a 5, 8 and a King meaning you need a 4 or a 9 for the straight.
* This means that a possibility of 8 cards (outs) could make your straight.

Before the turn multiply these outs by 4 to give you the percentage chance of completing your hand by the river.

* 8 X 4 = 32. Therefore you have approximately a 32% chance of hitting the straight by the river.

* If you miss your hand on the turn but are still in the hand for the river then:

Before the river multiply your outs by 2 to give you the percentage chance of completing your hand.

* 8 X 2 = 16. Therefore you have approximately a 16% chance of hitting on the river.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see there is a basic formula to stick to and this is a pretty good way to work it out. (The other way involves visualising 9 (outs) over 47 (cards unseen) etc etc and working out fractions but that takes more brain power.

In all cases you multiply outs by 4 when you're waiting for the turn and your outs by 2 when you're waiting for the river to give an approximate percentage.

Final Word

From this info you should now be able to work out your percentage chance of hitting trips (to your pocket pair), a full house (to your two pair) etc etc etc.

To the pedantic, these percentages are only approximate but give a very good rough guide.

Please let me know if this helps.

 

[TurnipHead]

If you have understood the above then you're ready to go to the next step in working out if it's a good play to call when someone puts you to a tough decision.

*Simply add up how much is in the pot, including the chips of the guy who has just raised.

*Look at how much you will have to put in the pot to call it.

*Using the pot odds you have calculated, make a decision.

EXAMPLE A
* On the turn, Mr Aggressive puts 1000 chips into a pot of 200 making it 1200.
* You will have to put in 1000 to chase your flush.
* You know there is a 36% chance to get the flush but the raise makes it poor value to chase so you fold.


EXAMPLE B
*On the turn, Mr Scaredy-Cat puts 100 chips into a pot of 100 making it 200 in total.
* You will have to put 100 chips in to chase your flush giving you odds of 3-1.
* There is a 36% chance to make it so you call (it might even be a good idea to raise Mr Scaredy-cat in this situation anyway).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I could give more examples on whether to call certain bets or not but, quite frankly, I think I've whittered on enough and if you don't get it by now then perhaps poker aint for you. Anyway, there is far more to the game of poker than odds and, yes, "implied" odds and other fancy things but I hope my basic explanation helps.

 

[ChuckTs]

Expected value....pot odds....implied odds!!!

This is all going way over my head and i'm getting frustrated with myself. I've read through the five fundamentals of poker and i'm lost to be honest. Will someone please pretend they're explaining the above to a 5 year old and try again. Otherwise i'm back to blackjack.

By the way i'm not an idiot i understand the principle's of all the above, it's just how they are broken down and related to poker, i'm sure there must be a simpler way of explaining it.

Come on someone...

I'll try:

Pot odds: The ratio of [pot size and any bets in front of you]:[price to call].

Pot odds are used to determine if you're getting the right price to continue in a hand. If you take a look at a chart like this, you'll see that a flush draw (9 outs) has roughly a 4:1 loss:win ratio from the flop to the turn. In other words, you will hit your draw one in five times.

So as an example, if you're in a hand where a player bets into you while you hold a flush draw, first you calculate your pot odds, then compare them to your drawing odds, and if your pot odds are greater than your drawing odds, then you call.

Pot = 100
Bet ahead of you = 50

So when he bets, you're getting [100+50]:[50] or 150:50 or 3:1 pot odds. Your pot odds don't exceed your drawing odds, so you should fold.

If we were to run the hand a bunch of times, it would go something like this (since we win one in five times, remember):

hit (+150)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
hit (+150)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
miss (-50)
(total = -100)

So in the long run, we're losing.

Now if he bets, say, 30 instead, we're getting:

[100+30]:[30]
= 130:30
= 4.33:1

So we're getting more than 4:1 on a 4:1 draw, and we can now call. Again, it would look like this:

hit (+130)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)
hit (+130)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)
miss (-30)

(total = +20)

 

[ChuckTs]

Implied odds: Basically your pot odds, but now we're factoring in any money or chips we can potentially win on a later street.

Consider that last example where we were getting bad odds to call on our flush draw.

100 pot, 50 bet, 3:1 pot odds.

While this isn't enough to call, if we can win enough to make up for the bad odds on a later street, we can call this.

So in order to make this a proper call, we need to make the pot a little more than 4 times the size of the bet we're facing (instead of the 3x it is now), so we'll need to make 50 more chips on a later street to make up for the bad odds:

[150 + 50]:[50]
= 200:50
= 4:1

So while we're making a bad pot odds call, the fact that we can potentially win a little more (or a lot more) chips on later streets if our opponent has a big enough stack makes this an easy call.

 

[Rockyrd27]

I like the out percentage method your talking about but after reading your posts.

As you can see there is a basic formula to stick to and this is a pretty good way to work it out. (The other way involves visualising 9 (outs) over 47 (cards unseen) etc etc and working out fractions but that takes more brain power.

Wouldn't it be more precise to tell him that form as he can visualize why it's improper to call, or fold to a certain bet?

Example 1

* You hold A and K of hearts.
* The flop comes down with 2 hearts meaning you need a heart to complete the flush.
* This means that a possibility of 9 cards could give you the flush (these are referred to as "outs"). So you have 9 outs.
-As we know there are 52 cards in a deck so you have roughly (rounded) 6 to 1 chance to make your flush.
*Player A bets $20 on a pot containing $100
*It costs you $10 to see a $110 pot
-As we know you're pot odds are now 11 to 1 on your money
*Since you're pot odds are greater than you're "out" odds it is correct to call.

Using the same set of cards, but just a slightly different bet we can see how it would be incorrect to call.

Example 2

* You hold A and K of hearts.
* The flop comes down with 2 hearts meaning you need a heart to complete the flush.
* This means that a possibility of 9 cards could give you the flush (these are referred to as "outs"). So you have 9 outs.
-As we know there are 52 cards in a deck so you have roughly (rounded) 6 to 1 chance to make your flush.
*Player A bets $100 on a pot containing $100
*It costs you $100 to see a $200 pot
-Now your pot odds being offered are 2 to 1. It is now incorrect to call because your pot odds are smaller than your "out" odds.

There are other types of considerations that come with pot odds, but for now you're going to want to stick with getting this down pat.
​

 

[aliengenius]

Um, the odds of hitting your flush on the turn are NOT (9 x 4) = 36%. "36%" is ONLY if you get to see BOTH cards. If a blank comes on the turn your odds of hitting on the river actual INCREASE (9/46 vs 9/47) from the odds you had on the flop (!); this is a CLASSIC misunderstanding of outs...

Anyway, let's break down "odds" into a simpler example: you want to compare the odds of the event occurring with the ratio of money risked to money possibly won.

Say we are flipping a coin: it's 1:1 on the outcome. But if I offer you 2:1 on your money (every time it comes up heads, you pay me $1, every time it comes up tails, I pay you $2), then that's a good bet for you.

Same thing in poker: if you are a 3:1 dog (approx.) to hit your flush and you are only getting 2:1 on your money, that's a bad bet for you. Specific example: you have a flush draw, there is $100 in the pot, opponent bets $100; you have to call $100 to win $200. You are getting 2:1 on your money, but you will only hit one in four times (approx.), or 3:1; therefore, bad bet.

BUT: if you can EXPECT to win more money IF you hit your draw, then you might be justified in calling due to IMPLIED ODDS. In other words, if you think your opponent will pay you off, you can "add" that money to the pot. So, in our example, instead of thinking of the pot as having $200 dollars in it (where you have to call $100 more), you can "add" the amount you think your opponent will also be willing to commit with an inferior hand.

This is, of course, a tricky part of NL poker-- if you are not going to get a cent more then you are not justified in calling. You have to know your opponent.

The classic example of implied odds in NL is "set mining": calling with a small pair, even though you are a 7.5:1 dog to hit your set (again note that the percentages of 80% vs 20% for pair over pair are ONLY if you see ALL five card, such as in the case of all-ins), you can expect to make more than 7.5:1 on your money from an over-pair that is unwilling to fold.

 

[TurnipHead]

Um, the odds of hitting your flush on the turn are NOT (9 x 4) = 36%. "36%" is ONLY if you get to see BOTH cards.

Hence the reason for putting the phrase, "the percentage chance of completing your hand by the river."

in big, bold, underlined text. The bit that says "completing your hand by the river" kinda presupposes that it means BOTH cards.

I really did try to make this crystal clear.

If a blank comes on the turn your odds of hitting on the river actual INCREASE (9/46 vs 9/47) from the odds you had on the flop (!); this is a CLASSIC misunderstanding of outs...

Also, I made a conscious effort not to go into detail about the 9/46, 9/47 business because the OP wanted a clear explanation in "layman's terms". I wanted to stick to the x4, x2 rule for the sake of clarity. You have implied that I have misunderstood this respect when I purposefully didn't go into details about this at all.

 

[TurnipHead]

Same thing in poker: if you are a 3:1 dog (approx.) to hit your flush and you are only getting 2:1 on your money, that's a bad bet for you. Specific example: you have a flush draw, there is $100 in the pot, opponent bets $100; you have to call $100 to win $200. You are getting 2:1 on your money, but you will only hit one in four times (approx.), or 3:1; therefore, bad bet.

Yes, this kinda undermines my poor example when trying to explain when it's right to call. Rockyrd also showed up my ropey thinking here as well. Oh well, learning all the time.

 

[jonnyboy151]

So, taking into account what everybody’s said, let’s see if I’ve got it...

There's three players including myself, the big blind’s £20.

My starting hand: 6ofC & 10ofC.

We all decide to play.

The flop: AofH, 8ofC, 9ofC.

The pot: £60.

Player X rasies £20 & player Y folds, meaning the pot odds are 80:20 or 4:1.

I've got 12 outs; nine clubs & three 7's (one 7's a club), so 47/12 = 3.92, this gives me
2.92:1 drawing or ‘out’ odds. (Question: Why do you always have to take 1 away from the sum of the divison, in order to achieve the correct figure?)

Because the pot odds are greater than my drawing odds it's a good idea to call.

The turn: AofH, 8ofC, 9ofC & 2ofD.

The pot: £100.

Player X again raises, this time £20, meaning my pot odds are 120:20 or 6:1.

I’ve still got 12 outs, this time though there are only 46 cards I can’t see so, 46/12 = 3.83, this gives me 2.83:1 drawing odds.

Again the pot odds are greater than my drawing odds so i’ll call.

The river: AofH, 8ofC, 9ofC, 2ofD & AofD.

The pot: £140.

My cards haven’t come out, player X checks, I check too and lose.

So I lose the hand, but in this scenario my drawing odds are roughly 3:1, meaning hypothetically, I win once out of every four times I’m in this situation.

Lose - 40
Lose - 40
Lose - 40
Win + 140

Long term profit = £20.

Right?

 

[jonnyboy151]

Turniphead: "In all cases you multiply outs by 4 when you're waiting for the turn and your outs by 2 when you're waiting for the river to give an approximate percentage."

Thanks, this is a brilliant way to quickly work out your percentage odds of hitting your cards on the turn or the river.

 

[ChuckTs]

(Question: Why do you always have to take 1 away from the sum of the divison, in order to achieve the correct figure?)

If you're a 2:1 dog, it means you win one in three times.

2:1 means you lose twice and he wins once out of three times. It's [his wins]:[your wins].

Odds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[aliengenius]

(Question: Why do you always have to take 1 away from the sum of the divison, in order to achieve the correct figure?)

The ratio of x:y is the sum of all the event trials, expressed as loss:win; so if you are 20% to win you are a 4:1 dog (80:20 = 4:1), even though you will win one if FIVE times (20 is one fifth of 100).

 

[jonnyboy151]

If you're a 2:1 dog, it means you win one in three times.

2:1 means you lose twice and he wins once out of three times. It's [his wins]:[your wins].

Odds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I understand odds, what i mean is according to the table you linked to your thread (which is a big help, thanks) their drawing odds are always exactly 1 less than the sum of the division.

Here’s what I mean:

I’m on for a flush, I’ve got 3H and 2H and the flop drops; AH, 8H & KS.

I’ve got four hearts, so I’ve got nine outs.

52 cards in a deck, take away the five cards I can see, leaves me with 47.

So… 47 / 9 = 5.22, exactly 1 more than the correct figure given in the table you linked to your thread earlier. It’s the same for all scenarios. Is it simply a case of taking the 1 away to form a ratio, the odds?


Appreciate this by the way.

Jonny.

 

[ChuckTs]

Yep. The 5.22 represents your probability, while the 4.22:1 represents your odds. Odds are the generally accepted form of the two for poker.

From Math Forum - Ask Dr. Math,

Let me clarify the difference between probability and odds. The
probability of an event is defined as:

(Chances for)
P(x) = ---------------
(Total chances)

So, for example, the probability of drawing an ace in a single deck of
52 cards is 4/52 = 1/13 (or about 0.077 = 7.7%).

Odds, on the other hand, are given as:

(Chances for) : (Chances against)