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 addition 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 other 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.

Rick Braddy's poker websites, books and software helps thousands around the world win more Texas Hold'em poker games. You can take his free Texas Holdem poker test to measure your poker skills, read his sit and go poker tournament e-book.

To be successful at poker you should, at any time during the play of a hand, be able to calculate the odds of catching your hand to the odds the pot is giving you.

Knowing the probability of making a specific hand in poker can be done by calculating hand odds. Figuring out how many outs you have will give you the possibility of calculating the number of times you will hit your hand by the river.

Lets say you're dealt A-9 of hearts in Texas Hold'em and the flop comes up showing two hearts. Your hand odds for hitting another heart by the river will be approximately 36% or 3 to 1. (you will hit your hand 1 out of 3 times)

You can figure this out by first finding the number of outs that you have. Outs are the number of cards remaining in the deck ( not visible to you) that can help you make your hand.

So if we are using the hand above as an example and you hold A-9 of hearts and catch two hearts on the flop, than you have 9 more hearts in the deck that can help you complete your flush. 2 hearts in your hand + 2 hearts on the table minus 13 hearts in total = 9 outs.

If you multiply your number of outs by 4, than you will get an approximate percentage of hitting your hand by the river (9x4=36%).

Poker pot odds is the ratio between the size of the pot compared to how much it will cost you to call a bet from another player. The higher the ratio between the size of the pot and the cost of calling a bet, the better your poker pot odds are.

If there are $40 in the pot after the flop and a player bets $10 and two other players calls his bet then you are getting 7 to 1 in pot odds. If you are chasing the A-9 flush draw from the flop , than you are getting a 36% or 3 to 1 in hand odds to catch your card at the river, so calling or even raising this bet will be a correct decision to make.

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