general forum = dumb question :D

[adam13]

At the risk of sounding like a complete NOOB......

Can someone please explain to me in plain english, exactly what pot odds are and how to figure them out???

Also, I read a bit somewhere about pot odds, and implied odds. What the hell is that??? Usually when I read online about this kind of stuff, or even see it on this site, I just smile and nod as though I understand what's going on. But I've put my pride aside and decided to finally ask!!

[adam13]

Oh yeah, thanks in advance for the replies (the good input and I definitely expect some smart ass comments too)

[eejit101]

short verion of pot odds....


You have 1,000 chips, there is 100 chips in the pot. Someone bets 100 chips, and its your turn. You have a flush draw. If you call the 100 chips, your getting 2:1 on your money, hence 2:1 pot odds. You need to work out the chance of your hand hitting, versus the money you have to put into the pot. In this case, fold.

however if there is 300 in the pot, and villian bets 100, you are getting 4:1 to call, as the chances of hitting your hand is less that 4:1, this makes it a call.



make sense>

[adam13]

so basically, the amount in the pot, divided by the amount it would cost me to call????

What number would be good pot odds compared to bad odds??

[Zybomb]

This is a fairly complete and thorough walk through of the BASICS of pot odds ---

Pot Odds: Are the size of the pot in relation to the bet you have to call.

If the pot is 400 dollars and someone has bet 100 dollars, the pot now contains 500 dollars (the original 400 plus the 100 dollar bet) and it is on you to call 100 dollars. The pot odds on your call are 500 (the money in the pot) :100 (the money you need to call), or simplified 5:1

So how the hell does one use this when playing poker?

If you are drawing, you need to know the percentage of the time your hands will complete. For example if you have an open ended straight draw you will hit on the turn OR the river 32% of the time (1 out of every 3 times for easy math...)

So if there was 500 in the pot and you had to call 100 with your straight draw you'd be getting 5:1 pot odds and your chances of making your straight are 3:1. Since this is favorable you should call

Keep in mind I said 3:1 on the turn OR the river. There is nothing saying that if you miss the turn, your opponent won't bet again and make you pay more money to see the river.

for simplicity (if thats a word) lets assume your opponent will check the turn if you call his flop bet here, and then we'll demonstrate how pot odds works.

If you call 100 dollars on the flop and your opponent checks the turn (we'll assume you check the river if you hit even though you obviously won't... but this will be addressed later on in the implied odds section) that means you will hit your straight 1 out of 3 times, and you'll miss it the other 2. So lets plug in numbers

Time 1: You call $100 and miss your straight
Result: $-100

Time 2: You call $100 and miss your straight
Result: $-100

Time 3: You call $100 and hit your straight
Result: Win $500

So if this process repeats an infinate number of times, you'd come out ahead $300 each time by making this call (youd win $500 once and lose 100 twice)... thus this call is correct

If instead you had to call $400 into an 800 dollar pot, now you'd only have 2:1 odds, which are lower than your 3:1 chance of making your straight...now lets see what happens

Time 1: You call $400 and miss your straight
Result: -$400

Time 2: You call $400 and miss your straight
Result: -$400

Time 3: You call $400 and hit your straight
Result: +$800

This is a break even play

If you had to call $800 into a $900 pot. You'd lose -1600 (800 twice) and win 900, making this call unprofitable

Using 'pot odds' it can help you determine whether or not call to or fold

Now the next issue is fairly obviously. OBVIOUSLY the opponent isn't always going to be checking the turn if you miss... and onbiously you aren't going to be checking if you hit! Thats where IMPLIED ODDS come in

Implied Odds are impossible to exactly calculate, but what they are is an ESTIMATE of how much MORE money you can make off of your opponent if you DO hit your hand.

The example above was a break even play. But what if I told you that it was likely that if you hit your hand, you could get your opponent to call a bet of $600 dollars. This nows becomes profitable for us

There are also NEGATIVE implied odds... these are a bit more complicated and I wont go into them much since you are new to these concepts, but they basically are when you hit your hand but it's still not the best hand, how much money you will lose by thinking it is the best hand. For an example say the flop had 3 spades on it, and your straight completed on the turn.... someone could have a flush, so you have negative implied odds for making your straight.

Now also keep in mind, like I said before, your opponent isn't always going to check the turn if you call his flop bet.

What if I now told you that after his $400 flop bet was called, he was going to bet $800 on the turn. So it is now costing you $1200 essentially, rather than $400. This is something to take into consideration as well when deciding what to do -- but for now the basics are a good start.

Recap:

- Learn to calculate pot odds, this is fairly easy to do on the spot (an approximation is fine you dont need to be exact)... be fimiliar with them before even begining to examine implied odds

- Know how many outs you have if you are drawing (a flush draw has 9 outs, an open ended straight draw has 8 outs, an inside straight draw has 4 outs, a pair has 5 outs to two pair or trips, there are 10 outs that will turn your three of a kind will into a full house etc etc)

- Know the percentages for the number of outs... you don't have to know EVERY amount of outs percentage, but memorize the ones that come up often

9 outs (flush draw): 36% (roughly 3:1)
8 outs (open end straight draw) 32% (roughly 3:1)
15 outs (a straight AND flush draw) 54% (you are a favorite here -- unless you are up against a set but ignore that for now)
6 outs (two over cards) 24% (roughly 4:1)
4 outs (gutshot straight) 16% (roughly 6:1)

- After this is mastered think of implied odds... how much MORE money will your opponent give you if you hit your hand? Will he put you on the hand you have a fold and give you nothing more? Will he bet again? If he checks and you bet will he call?

- Finally don't forget that these percentages are the %s that you will make your hand on the turn OR river (with 2 cards to come) With only one card to come these percentages reduce dramatically.

- Also remember that even with 2 cards to come, there is nothing saying your opponent wont bet the turn, and if you miss if you want to see a river you need to reevaluate your pot odds (adjusting them for only 1 card to come) an see if you can call this bet. When deciding to call the first bet on the flop, if you expect there to be a turn bet that you will have to fold to if you miss, keep this in consideration when deciding what to do as well

Well there, that should be more than enough to get you started. Read up

[adam13]

That makes pretty good sense to me........
Now out of all of that a couple more questions.

1. If my pot odds are greater than my percentage of hitting my hand, generally speaking, I should call??

2. How did you calculate those percentages of frequency of hitting my hand? (31% for flush etc....) Curious so that I might be able to figure out how those odds would be affected if I missed the turn.......


thanks alot for the detailed explanation though.....I am determined to learn this so I can actually get better!!

[Zybomb]

1. Yes... go look over the examples I posted with actual numbers and see for yourself WHY you should call

2. A flush isn't 31% first of all... but ignoring that, to keep it simple it takes the number of cards that will help you (in a flush draw case 9 cards will help you, since there are 9 remaining diamonds, or whatever suit you have left in the deck) and compares it to the number of unseen cards. There are 52 cards in a deck, you know what 2 of them are (from whats in your hand) and what 3 more of them are (the flop) That means there are 47 'unknown cards'. NOW I realize that there arent 47 cards left in the deck, because your opponents have some of them... but since we do not know what cards your opponents have, we have to include them in the unseen cards. Now if we knew that your 4 opponents had 2 cards each and none was a diamond, then there'd be 39 unknown cards instead and the % would go up... but since we don't know we have to assume there is an equal chance of there being diamonds in your opponents hands as there is for them not to have diamonds.

So 47 cards remaining, which means that 9 will help you and 38 will not help you

38 / 9 = 4.2


Now say you miss on the turn.

Now there are 46 unknown cards (because we know one more, the turn card) and still 9 cards that will help us (the 9 diamonds still) but now only 37 that will not help us

37 / 9 = 4.1

So these are roughly your chances that you will hit on JUST the turn or JUST the river (roughly 4:1)

But, you have 9 outs twice ( once on the turn and again on the river)

I used to just say thats a total of 18 outs (9+9) and 27 non outs 29:9 = 38%, but that's off by 2% and obvious I can't figure it that way since I don't actually have 18 outs and the number of cards changes on the turn and river... rather than figure out the exact way to it it, I just memorized an odds chart and stuck with it

(a way of saying ask someone who is better at math than I am) lol

[PShabi]

I'm gonna answer this a bit simpler for you than Zy did. Just cause I think it helps to hear things in a different way for some people. Zy's post was so money, but I remember back when I was trying to figure out pot odds and shit for the first time and saying, "huh," even when it was explained thoroughly.

1) Yes. If you're pot odds are 5:1 and you are a 3:1 favorite to win the hand, call. If the pot odds are 3:1 and the chance of you hitting the best hand are 5:1, you fold. (ignoring implied odds for the example).

2) You can odds to %s simply. 9:1 odds say that you are going to miss 9 times for every 1 time you hit, in ten trials. So, putting it simply, you will hit 1 out of 10 times. 1/10 = 10%.

My suggestion is learn how to count your outs properly. Okay, I'm behind here, but I have 8 outs to improve, etc. For the time being, find a good odds chart like the one in SSHE.

It shows you that if you have X outs, you need X:X pot odds to breakeven. So then you'll know your odds of hitting w/o timing out! Then just count the odds the pot is laying you (i.e. 8 bets in, 1 more to call). After a while, you won't need the chart anymore. The most frequent draws will be cemented in your brain.

[Talking Poker]

Good thread, and for the most part, excellent posts. I have one thing that I NEED to comment on though, and that is this:

These numbers are regarding ONLY an all in on the flop situation. As that's not the most common situation when considering pot odds (the most common being "What are my odds of hitting on this NEXT card, whether it be on the turn or on the river?") I think those are much more important to memorize/learn.

I could type them all up for you (and maybe Zy will), but I want to give you a good rule of thumb that I don't think has been mentioned in this thread yet: With one card to come, the chances of making your hand are APPROXIMATELY your number of outs * 2, expressed as a percent. In other words (again, these are to give you a quick ballpark, not exact odds):
5 outs: 10% = 9:1
9 outs: 18% = > 4:1
and so on.

[New Guy]

Extremly helpfull to all im sure!!

[Zybomb]

Exactly, and I mentioned that in my post,

along with 1 example on how to calculate %'s for JUST the turn or JUST the river in the post following that. It is important to know both, and to get the basic concepts down pact, but I thought too much focus on that would be confusing to those just learning the concept

[PShabi]

No, not at all. Surprise, surprise.

[Zybomb]

LMFAO

My favortie part is the bold