Calculating Poker Odds and Pot Odds Without a Poker Odds Calculator

The #1 most commonly asked question I receive from my subscribers has to do with calculating poker odds properly. When I look at how my students do on their Poker Test scores (overall) when taking my poker test, the area that people clearly struggle with the most is in calculating odds.

You calculate "pot odds" as the current size of the pot vs. the amount of chips you'd be required to bet in order to stay in the hand.

For example, let's say the pot has 1000 chips in it, and you can call a bet of 100. Your pots odds are 10 to 1, or 1000:100. These are the odds the pot is giving you to make that bet.

Another example. The pot has 150 chips in it, and the blind is currently 50, and you're first to act. What's your pot odds? Simple. They're 3 to 1. Once you put your bet in there, the next person's pot odds will be 4 to 1, and so on.

So, the more people there are to act after you, the more likely it is that you're going to end up with BETTER odds than you're seeing from the pot right now. Make sense?

OK then. Now you understand "implied odds" - what your pot odds are likely to be after everyone acting behind you place their bets into the pot, too.

Simple enough - right? Well, sort of. Pot odds by themselves are good to understand and easy enough to calculate. What you also need to know are the odds of improving your hand to WIN this pot!

These are called your "hand odds" - the odds of you improving your hand (or holding the best hand already) to win.

So, let's say you have a flush draw. You're holding two spades and there's two spades showing on the board. You need to draw one more spade, on either the Turn or the River - right? So, what are your "hand odds" now?

The easiest way is to calculate your number of outs. An "out" is how many cards remain that could make your hand. If it's the flop now, then there are four spades showing that you can see. This means there's nine more spades remaining (13 total - 4 showing = 9 left).

So, there's nine (9) outs available that will make your flush. You can calculate your hand odds (roughly) as:

(OUTS times 2) plus 1 = % chance you'll win

So, you have 9 outs. 9 times 2 is 18, plus 1 = 19%

You have a 19% chance of drawing your flush. Now, 19% is basically a 1 in 5 chance of drawing it.

So, should you stay in this hand?

Let's see what your "expectation" would be...

Your expectation is POSITIVE if the pot odds are greater (better) than your hand odds.

In our example, your pots odds are 3 to 1, and your hand odds are only 1 in 5. Fortunately, if two players behind you also call, then your pot odds rise to 5 to 1 - making this a "break-even" kind of expectation (not real good), and that's assuming the other players act as you'd hope they do...

Let's look further, though. Let's say you also have a straight draw, in additon to that flush draw. Now we need to add the additional outs for the straight.

Let's say you need a 9 to make a straight. There are 4 Nines in the deck. Therefore, your total outs are now 9 + 4 = 13.

Our chances of winning just improved:

13 times 2 = 26 + 1 = 27%

So, now you have better than a 1 in 4 chance of winning!

As long as those two people who act after you do call the bet, you'll have a positive expectation and should play this hand (something you generally can't count on).

If they do not act, you'll have "negative expectation", since your odds of winning are 1 in 4, and if you win, you'll get 3 to 1 on your money.

Statistically, if you play with a negative expectation long enough - you lose. All casino games (craps, blackjack, roulette, etc.) have a negative expectation - which is how they build those amazing, expensive casinos and keep them running day in and day out consistently.

To make money in poker consistently, you must learn how to think through these odds. If that's too hard (it is for most of us, so don't feel bad), then go ahead and get a good poker odds calculator:

Calculating outs, pot odds, hand odds and expectation is time-consuming, error-prone and hard to do without a computer. That's why it makes so many people now rely on poker odds calculators.

On the othe hand, you won't have that odds calculator the next time you're playing in a regular, offline game, so be careful to practice doing it the good old-fashioned way.

I'd wish you best of luck, but if you're playing poker odds properly, lady luck will naturally be with you.

Rick