Pot odds?

[blee66]

I have a question about the meaning of pot odds. I guess, what is it? Is this similar to the mathematical definition of expected value?

[2Shey]

yep! Pot Odds: Which Player holds the hand with the best winning odds to take the pot.
Usually it goes by percentage and how much is in your favour to take the others out..
Hope this helps a little..Good Luck

[blee66]

I guess this is what got me confused:
These tables were copied from http://wizardofodds.com/holdem

Pot Odds - After Flop
Hand Probability of
Making Hand Pot Odds
4 to a flush 34.97% 1.86
4 to an outside straight 31.45% 2.18
4 to an inside straight 16.47% 5.07

Pot Odds - After Turn
Hand Probability of
Making Hand Pot Odds
4 to a flush 19.57% 4.11
4 to an outside straight 17.39% 4.75
4 to an inside straight 8.70% 10.50

In these tables the hands with this lower percentage of making the hand have higher pot odds....

[ichbinnreine]

pot odds is used basically to figure out if it is worth staying in the hand to see the turn and river. say you have an open ended straight draw after the flop (5678). now you should do what is called counting outs. how many cards that are unrevealed could make your hand win if they appear in the turn or river. since any 4 or any 9 can make you win, you count 8 outs because there are 4 of each card taht are left in the deck. a flush draw after the flop lets say 4 hearts means there are 9 hearts left in the deck that could come up so you have 9 outs. now to figure out the % that the card you want will come up there is one of two ways to do it.

1) take the # of outs and divide by the amount of cards left unrevealed. so if you have 8 outs, and its after the flop, do 8/47 (3 flop cards and your 2 pocket cards subtracted from 52 in a deck). you will get a decimal... multiply by 100 and that is the percentage that the a card you want will come up on the turn. now do # of outs/46 (after the turn) and that is the % that your card will come up on the river. add them together for your % that the card you need will come after the flop.

2) for people not good at math. after the flop is show, to calculate the %, take the # of outs, and multiply by 4. it comes out about 2% off the actual % but is way faster and easier to do. if the turn comes and you didnt get your card. to figure out the % that your card will come on the river just multiply # of outs by 2.

now you are saying... ok... what do i do with the percentage. well. say there is 300 chips in the pot. and someone bets 50 more. you want to call but dont know if it is worth it. since it will cost you 50 to stay in and there are 300 chips in the pot. do 50/300. get a rough estimate of what that might be.. 1/6th. now compare 1/6th to the % you found. (8 outs and after the flop, so 32%). 32% is about 1/3. if the % your card will come up is larger than the % that the bet compares to the pot size, then it is mathematically correct that it is worth it to call.

ok feel free to get used to those ideas and ask questions whenever, ill check this forum.
sometimes you have to go with gut feelings and get lucky. also this is just the basic ideas. there are betting odds and implied odds also that deal with raising and checking and all that. dont worry about it for now.. just try this stuff out and then you can find other explanations by using google.

[blee66]

So basically if the expected value is positive call, if it is negative, fold.

[ichbinnreine]

if the chance of making your hand is better than the risk you are taking then call.

[Mac46]

OK pot odds are simple.. lets not get confused.

Simply put the pot odds are:

the size of the pot/the size of the bet you need to call.

So if the pot is 150 Chips and it costs you 15 to call the pot odds are 10:1

or if the pot is 300 someone bets 300 and it cost you 300 to call the pot odds are:

600 (size of current pot)/300 (size of your bet) = 2:1

Thats all.

You then look at your hand decide whether those odds are better or worse than your chances of winning and make your decision... its that easy. Ichbinreine is looking mainly at the question of how you judge whether its reasonable to call.. that's a much bigger subject, but pot odds are easy to calculate.

That is the basics.. obviously if there are others to come after you then it gets more complicated (especially if they are agressive or have raised before the flop)

Cheers

Mac

[OP66fozzy]

Thanks for that. I have often heard people talking about pot odds, but never knew what they meant.

I'll try and incorporate that information into my game from now on ( if only I knew what the odds were of me having the best hand, lol).