How To Calculate Pot Odds The Easy Way

There is an easy way to calculate pot odds, and there is a more exact formula that really isn’t necessary to play the game. It is worth knowing; so I will mention it, but for the sake of your poker game, I am going to show you how to calculate pot odds simply and quickly.

I realize that a lot of you probably already know how to calculate pot odds and you should. There are however surprisingly a lot of poker players out there that don’t know how to calculate pot odd; that is where I come in.

For those of you that don’t already know…

Pot Odds: The amount of money in the pot compared to the amount of money that you must put in to call a bet.

What you must know first

The first thing you need to know before you can calculate pot odds is how to figure out your odds of winning a hand. To do that, you must know your outs. An out is a card that you can catch to help you win.

Once you count your outs; on the flop you multiply your outs by 4 then add 1 and that is the percentage of catching one of your outs. On the turn you would cut that number in half. So you would multiply by 2 and add 1 percent.

Example:

20 Outs on flop = 20 * 4 = 80 + 1 = 81%

20 Outs on Turn = 20 * 2 = 40 + 1 = 41%

Calculating Pot Odds

Now that you know how to figure out your chances of winning the hand, you can figure out pot odds. The idea is to justify whether or not you should call a bet or not. To do this you would compare your outs or percentage of winning to the amount of money that is in the pot.

Example:

You have 10 outs

Figure out your percentages – 10 * 4 then add 1 = 41% (the adding 1 is not really needed) we will just say 40%.

So that means that you have a 40% chance to win and your opponent has a 60% chance to win. You have to assume that if you catch your outs you will have the best hand obviously. So that means you are a bit under a 2:1 underdog to win the hand.

Count the money in the pot – for this example we will say that the pot has $100.00.

Compare the amount of money in the pot to the bet you need to call. So if your opponent bet $50.00 you are looking at a bet of half the pot. Since you were getting better then 2:1 you would make the call here. The amount of money in the pot compared to the amount bet is 2:1. If it were anymore you would fold, if it were any less then you would call.

Part of poker is just a big numbers game. The thing is that a lot of people don’t realize that. There are people that claim to be poker players but they could never tell you really how to calculate pot odds. I am telling you right now that knowing the math of poker along will give you a huge edge over your opponents. To some of you this seems simple because you have been doing it so long. You would be surprised how many do not calculate pot odds before making decisions.

So the next time you are considering calling a $300.00 bet into a $100.00 pot with a flush draw…consider thinking about using the easy method to quickly calculate your pot odds.