Ins and Outs : Understanding Poker Odds

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In a similar vein, suppose you are holding the 6 of clubs and 7 of hearts as your hole cards, and the flop appears as:

8c 9d Ac

You are once again in a drawing position as you have 6, 7, 8, 9 in sequence. Therefore a 5 or a 10 will complete your straight and is likely to win you the hand. There are 4 fives and 4 tens in the deck so 8 x 2.2% = 17.6%, which are the odds of you hitting the straight come the turn. The overall odds of you hitting the hand after the turn and the river are approximately 31.5%.

Mastering Pot Odds

Pot odds are the tool by which any serious poker play makes a decision as to the amount of money they are prepared to commit to a given pot to win a hand. Put simply, one should only call a bet if the pot odds are greater than the odds of one making one's hand come the river. For instance, given the first flush drawing position outlined above, we have calculated the odds of hitting a heart flush come the river as 36%. Suppose the game consists of $5 / $10 blinds and the pot come the flop lies at $60. You have your nut flush draw and your opponent makes a bet of $30 and you're next to act.

A $30 bet represents 50% of the pot (the pot odds), which is clearly higher than the 36% chance you have of hitting your flush. Therefore, a fold would be the correct action as the pot odds clearly outweigh the odds of you hitting your hand. If however, your opponent made a $15 better, the pot odds would be 25%, meaning a call would be the correct action as you possess flush draw odds (36%) which clearly outweigh those of the pot. Although these numbers are easy to grasp on a theoretical level, it is not immediately clear what it means in plain cash terms.

Show me the Money

Put simply, if this hand is played three times, we are liable to win it approximately one time out of three. For the two occasions the hand is lost, $30 (2 x $15) would have been committed to the pot and lost but for the 1 in 3 occasions where the pot is won, a $60 pot would be won, which is a $30 overall profit as set against the 2 $15 losses. Therefore, playing these odds over time is liable to yield profit so the occasions of losing are insignificant as the pot odds demonstrate that in the long run, money will be made.

A common query as to the nature of pot odds is why the odds of hitting one's straight or flush draw is usually calculated over the two cards still to come rather than just the next card to be revealed. In theory, another bet may be made by one's opponent on the turn and this bet will need to be matched again so why do pot odds seemingly not take account of this?

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