Poker and Pot Odds

July 4, 2023 Silas Everhart

In poker, there are good and bad bets – the game is simply a way of determining who can tell the difference. This is where the concept of pot odds comes into play. Put, pot odds mean there is enough to call a bet.

The fundamental principle of playing a drawing hand in poker is that you need a pot big enough to call. When we have a flush or straight draw, we will make our hand on the next card almost 20% of the time (19% for flush and 17% for the straight draw). That is, 20% of the time, we will make our desired hand, and 80% won’t. The ratio 20 to 80 can be expressed as odds of 4-to-1. Therefore, if the pot is $80, we can almost call a $20 bet to break even. I say almost because we have to make a profit, so a call of $20 is appropriate when there is more than $80 in the pot.

Table of Contents

Know the Odds

You should know how to calculate odds based on the number of “outs.” If you don’t know the odds of hitting certain common draws, please study our previous lesson on calculating odds and outs in poker. For the benefit of this lesson, we’ll include the handy chart below:

Table: Odds and outs from the flop and the turn to the river:

We have created a printable PDF version of the poker drawing odds chart (opens in a new window). You will need Adobe Acrobat on your computer to view it on screen. We recommend you print the chart and memorize these odds, particularly the common draws – as your time is better spent analyzing your opponents’ play rather than attempting to perform mathematical calculations in your head.

Track the Pot Size

Part of the concept of pot odds is to focus on calculating how to determine the odds of your hand becoming a winner. The other part of the equation is knowing how much is in the pot to understand what odds it offers.

If you’re playing poker online, then the pot size should always be in clear view – simple! If you’re playing poker live, it’s as easy as paying attention and using basic arithmetic to know the pot size at every step. All one needs to do is multiply the total amount bet on each street by the number of active players and add that sum to the blinds if they are not participating in the hand. Hold that total in your head and add the following calculation of the next street’s betting, and you will always have the pot total available to calculate your pot odds. Here are some critical advice: know what is always in the pot. How else can you make proper mathematical decisions?

Calculating the Pot Odds

You should know the odds of hitting your card(s) and the pot size. The next step is to know what odds the bank is offering you. The best way to teach you is to use an example hand. Take a look at Figure 1 below:

Figure 1

As you can see, we have nine outs for the nut flush draw, so the odds of hitting our flush on the river are roughly 20% or 4-to-1 odds. There is $450 in the pot, and player two bets $150, which now makes the total bank $600. It’s going to cost us $150 to win $600. How do we calculate these figures to give us the pot odds? This is fairly simple as 600/150 = 4, so we have 4-to-1 odds for our money.

If we want to know the percentage, we add the bet (call amount) to the pot to give us a total pot figure. In this example, it would be 150 + 600 = 750. Once we have this figure, we must perform the following formula: call amount / total pot size. This would be 150 / 750 = 0.2 or 20% in our example.

Now we know the pot odds; should we call or not? In our example, we can justify the call as we’re getting 4-to-1 pot odds, and our odds of hitting and winning are also 4-to-1. But remember, it’s a break-even call over the long term if we’re only counting the flush draw. Ideally, we’d want the pot to be a little bigger or their bet to be smaller. However, if we believe that hitting an Ace of King (giving us six additional outs) on the river would beat our opponent, then we’d have more than enough odds to call the bet.

In poker, it pays to keep playing whenever the pot odds exceed the odds against making your hand. It’s usually a bad deal when the odds against your hand coming in exceed its reward. A simple way to think about this is as follows:

When the prize exceeds the cost, you should call.
Fold if the price is more than the money you figure to win.

Let’s look at another example:

Figure 2

Here we have a straight and a flush draw, meaning we have 15 possible outs. The odds of hitting one of our outs on the turn is 31.9% or 2.13-to-1. The pot costs $36 ($24 + $12) and $12 to call.

Are we getting enough pot odds to call? First, let’s do the figures in odds…..$36 (total pot) / $12 (cost to call) = 3. Expressed as a ratio, this would be 3-to-1 odds, meaning we’ll win once every four times. In percentage terms… the pot odds can be defined as 25%. Our drawing odds are 31.9%. Since the pot offers us better odds than our draw, we should call the $12 bet.

Let’s continue with this hand example. As you can see in Figure 3, we didn’t hit on the turn, we checked, and our opponent then bets $60 into the existing $48 in the pot.

Figure 3

Are we still getting the correct pot odds to call in the hopes of hitting a straight or flush? The answer is no.

The pot odds are now 1.8-to-1 (108 / 60) or 35.7% in percentage terms. Our drawing odds are 2.07-to-1 or 32.6%. Since the pot odds are less than the odds of hitting, in this instance, we should fold. To call a bet here, we’d need the pot to be a little bigger or our opponent’s bet a little lower. He has priced us out with his overbet.

So, that old feeling we had, “There is a bunch of money in the pot, I call,” was and is a sound tactic. Now we know more precisely when going in on draws is profitable and not worthwhile. Knowing pot odds does two things; it lets us concentrate on the other players and turns poker into a game of skill.

Make Your Opponents Pay

Let’s take a quick look at a situation when you’re the one with a made hand and figure out one or more of your opponents to draw. Understanding the concept of pot odds should help you to determine an appropriate bet size and charge your adversaries for their possible draws.

Imagine raising a bunch of limpers from a late position, holding pocket Jacks. The big blind and the three of the original limpers all call your raise, and the five of you watch a flop of :

You’ve hit the middle set, but straight and flush draws are staring at you, along with four opponents. There is $86 in the pot, and everyone checks to you. You will make a continuation bet, but you must decide how much. Allow me to provide a checklist of criteria to think about that; as you become more experienced, you will become so automatic as not to require any conscious thought.

Know the pot size – in this case, $86.
Acknowledge the texture of the flop and tendencies of your opponents in terms of potential threats to your holding. Limpers and callers are many times on draws.
Know the odds of the potential draws the flop offers. In this case, both flush and straight draws.
Make a bet that will not offer the potential draws the correct odds.
You should bet the size of the pot, $86, to make the odds offered by the bank only 2-to-1, which would not be attractive for draws.

If it is true, and I believe it is, that the bulk of your poker profit comes from the mistakes of others rather than your brilliant play, then identifying opponents that overpay to draw to their hands is critical information. Aside from just playing too many hands, one of the biggest and most expensive mistakes less experienced poker players commit is paying too high a price to try to make their draws. Ferret this information out by tracking the pot and watching showdowns; then, you can determine how to manipulate the size of the pool against that opponent in a future hand.

Implied Odds

This extension of pot odds represents the ratio of the total amount you expect to win if you complete your hand to the amount you need to call to continue. You don’t have the correct odds to call, but if you reason that there’s a good chance that your opponent will bet again when you hit your draw, you might be getting the implied odds to call.

While implied odds are an important tool to be aware of, particularly in no-limit holds, many less disciplined players abuse it to justify chasing draws that are not getting the correct pot odds. While pot odds can be calculated with total accuracy, calculating implied odds takes some guesswork and knowledge of your opponent’s tendencies. It’s more of an art than a science.

Tournament Play

Much of what has been offered so far benefits cash games and poker tournaments. But it would be best to approach opponents in desperate matches differently. In a cash game, being pot-committed doesn’t come into play. The term pot committed refers to a player who has half or more of his chips already in the pot, so if he loses this pot, he is pretty much finished anyway. This player will be called due to his predicament, not based on the pot odds. Players calling tournament play without the correct pot odds do not necessarily indicate poor play. Calling may still represent their best chance mathematically to move forward in the tournament and make money. Hence the expression, do or die!

The reverse situation is relative to pot odds can also occur in tournament play. Imagine being in a position wherein you have the correct pot odds to call, but folding could be the better option to advance. An example of this phenomenon would be holding the nut flush draw with one card to come with two other opponents already all-in by a monster stack late in a poker tournament. The pot could be offering you greater than the odds required to make the call mathematically correct, but the fact remains that you will miss your flush 80% of the time. If you were on the bubble with the big stack bully already having two other players all-in and knew you would only prevail in the hand 20 percent of the time – I think a fold would be in order.

Many believe that pot odds aren’t nearly as important in tournament play. This is especially true in the lower stake “fast” events typical in life and internet play. These players focus on the odds of their opponents’ calling based on the size of the chip stacks. While some of this is true, if you ignore pot odds because you are in a poker tournament, you will start to slide down a slippery slope. If you plan to make a decision that is not by good pot odds play, you should have a very significant reason.

Put in the Work

Knowing what and how to use pot odds is essential to become a winning poker player. Learning to use these concepts to your advantage can put you ahead of many players who are too lazy to do the work. They are playing on feel and their gut instincts and are proud of it. I’m happy they’re proud of this approach because they can’t be proud of their bankrolls. These “proud” players are the assets you need in cash games and tournaments. Let them be proud – you should put in the work – you’ll be glad you did as you’ll end up with their bankrolls.