Calculating your pot odds and equity in a hand in poker are vital in giving you the information you need to make the statistically correct decision. But first, a little Poker 101 for all you noobs out there – we’re talking about pot odds and pot equity. Most people have at least some understanding of odds in general. If you pick a number at random between 1 and 10, your odds of picking any specific number (say, 3 or 7) are exactly 1 in 10. Pot odds are defined as the ratio between the size of the pot and the bet facing you. For example, if there is $4 in the pot and your opponent bets $1, you are being asked to pay one-fifth of the pot in order to have a chance of winning it. A call of $1 to win $5 represents pot odds of 5:1. Pot odds are the ratio between the size of the pot and the size of the bet you are facing. They are used primarily in comparison to winning odds as the basis for optimal decision-making. Think of pot odds as the amount you stand to win for every dollar you are required to commit, and winning odds as your actual chance of winning the pot.
- Pot Odds Poker Explained Payouts
- Pot Odds Poker Explained Poker
- Pot Odds Poker Explained Against
- Pot Odds Poker Explained Odds
PokerSpoils Newsletter
Enter your email address below so I can send you exclusive promotions that I am not allowed to advertise on this website!
Popular Pages
Poker Rooms Reviewed
Pot Odds Poker Explained Payouts
-PokerStars
-Bovada Poker
-Cake Poker
-Party Poker
-PKR Poker
-Titan Poker
Poker Bonuses
-PokerStars Bonus
-Bovada Poker Bonus
-Cake Poker Bonus
-Party Poker Bonus
-PKR Poker Bonus
Knowing how to calculate pot odds is one of those fundamental poker skills that no poker player should be without. It is a powerful concept because the pot odds can accurately tell you whether or not it’s profitable to call bets in the hopes of hitting a draw.
Pot odds work by comparing the size of the bet and size of the pot to the chances that your draw will hit. Luckily this is an easy concept to learn and before you know it you’ll be calculating the pot odds all the time without even realizing it. In fact, you’ll often use the pot odds when you’re not even in a hand to identify the fish at the table who chase draws against the odds.
There are two ways to calculate your pot odds. One way is extremely simple and easy to use; the other way requires a calculator. The simple method is easier to explain so I guess we’ll use that one today. Besides, I don’t even know how to use a calculator for pot odds. This stuff is all memorization. It’s simple. I have no idea why so many web pages teach the complicated method.
1. Find the Pot Odds
The first step in figuring out whether or not you should call a bet is to compare the size of the bet to the size of the pot using a ratio. If an opponent bets $10 into a $50 pot, your pot odds are 60:10. This reduces down to 6:1. If an opponent bets $50 into a $100 pot, your pot odds are 150:50 or 3:1. Notice that we include the bet when counting the pot size.
That’s the first step. The hardest part is over! Do you see how this works? You just set up the size of the pot next to the size of the bet and reduce it down to simple terms. The next step is even easier.
2. Compare the Pot Odds to the Drawing Odds
What you do here is compare the chances of your draw hitting to the pot odds we figured in the last section. The only thing slightly resembling effort that you have to do here is memorize the odds for a few of the more common drawing hands.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you have a flush draw and an opponent has bet $10 into a $60 pot. You want to know if you should call or fold. The pot is giving you 7:1 and the odds of a flush draw hitting on the next card are about 4:1. Should you call? Yes. Whenever the pot odds are greater than the drawing odds, it is correct to call. In this example the pot odds are giving you 7:1 on a 4:1 draw. You can call this bet every day and expect to profit over the long term.
What I mean by “profit over the long term” is best explained using an example. Let’s say that over the course of a year you get into the above situation 100 times. 80 times you will miss the flush draw and have to fold for a total of $800 spent chasing and missing.
The other 20 times you complete the flush draw and win the $70 pot for a total of $1,400 in wins. Subtract $800 from $1,400 and you end up with net wins totaling $600. That’s what we mean by looking at the long term.
3. Memorize the Odds for Common Drawing Hands
The only thing you have to do now is memorize the odds for some of the common drawing hands out there. Some of the most common drawing hands I encounter are flush draws (4:1), straight draws (5:1), 2-pair to full house draws (11:1) and gutshot straight draws (11:1).
There are plenty of poker odds charts out there if you want to look up additional draws. Most odds charts list the odds in two columns: chance on next card and chance on next 2 cards.
You don’t know if you’ll have to call additional bets on the next street so always base your calculations on only one card coming. The only time you would want to use the “2 cards coming” column is when you’re about to get it all-in on the flop and know for sure that you’ll get to see two cards for this one bet.
Poker Concepts Worth Knowing
Only starting out with poker in 2020?
I remember when I started with poker, I found remembering the important parts of the game challenging.
But your journey can become easier with this printable poker cheat sheet for beginners (I wish I had this when starting out!).
Table Of Contents
- How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.
- How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example
- How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example
- Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands
Poker Cheat Sheet For Texas Holdem:
Download the high-quality Poker Cheat Sheet printable (PDF) version:
The cheat sheet includes hyperlinks for further reading on any material you may not yet know.
Click here for more information on pre-flop and post-flop. We also discuss Texas Holdem bet sizing in the highlighted link.
If you like the cheat sheet, you may also enjoy these these awesome starting hand charts from upswing poker. They are a more detailed version of the starting hands section in the cheat sheet above which supplement it nicely. Amazingly they have been downloaded almost 200,000 times!
How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.
Step 1: Find your hand on the chart (example KT suited)
Step 2: Determine whether you should follow coloured or number schematic.
Either:
- If first to raise (no other player has raised before you), follow the coloured schematic.
- If facing a raise or reraise, follow the numbered schematic.
Note: If playing on a 6max table (6 players as opposed to 9), the yellow coloured hands will also be able to be played from any position.
See the image below for the numbered and colour schematic.
Step 3: Take into account information give under headings preflop and post flop.
How to play poker preflop is a tough subject to cover in detail. There are many factors you need to take into account such as:
- Your position and your opponents position.
- Your opponents likely holdings
- Board texture
- Previous history
A brief explanation of why position is powerful and why we play fewer hands when there are more players left to act (still with a hand):
When playing on a fullring table, you will have to contend with nine players, who each have a chance of picking up a big hand. Therefore, when playing a full ring game, you will play fewer hands. You can read more on this concept at fullring vs. 6max.
The difference in player numbers is also why we play a wide range of hands from the Button, but very few hands from UTG (first position). When opening the Button, we only have two players left to act (unlikely for them to have a strong hand), whereas when playing from UTG in a full ring game, eight other players could potentially pick up a big hand.
For more in-depth details on this see Texas Holdem Strategy and Position is King!
Step 4: Take home some cash
Hopefully, this poker cheat sheet will help you ‘bring home the bacon' as they say, but there is always something more to learn in poker. Keep reading for some more cheat sheets which might be of use to you.
Get Your Miniature (Credit Card Sized) Texas Holdem Starting Hands Cheat Sheet
This cheat sheet only contains the most vital information you need so it can handily fit in your pocket. The legends have also been squeezed onto the hand chart in front of hands we always fold.
To download printable PDF which is scaled to credit card size, use the Facebook unlock button:
Poker Odds Cheat Sheet (for Texas Hold'em)
Get your pot odds cheat sheet below. You can use this to determine the number of outs required to continue based on the pot odds you are being offered. You can also use it to convert between percentages, required outs and ratios for all kinds of situations in poker. The pot odds cheat sheet is explained in more detail below:
Click here to get a high-quality printable pdf version of the Poker Odds Cheat Sheet.
Pot Odds Poker Explained Poker
When your opponent bets you will be offered odds based on the size of his bet. For example, if your opponent bets half pot you will be offered odds of 3:1 on a call (call 1 to win 3). Essentially, it is your risk to reward ratio.
Pot odds will tell you whether is it correct for you to call or fold based on what size our opponent bet and how many cards that will improve our hand.
If you are interested in the learning poker math, check out our best poker books recommendation page here for some awesome books on poker math.
How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example
1. Work out pot odds
In this hand, our opponent bets $26 into a $41.5 pot making the total pot size $67.5. This gives us odds of 67.5: 26 (67.5 = 41.5+26). Or approximately 2.6:1. You can also see how to convert this into a percentage in our article pot odds.
2. Find 2.6:1 on the card (or as close to it as possible).
We locate 2.6:1 on the chart tells us that 2.6:1 translates to 30.11% pot equity. In other words:
- if we win 30% of the time, we will break even,
- if we win > 30% of the time we will make a profit on average in this situation
- if we win <30% of the time, we will make a loss on average in this situation
3. Determine our actual equity
This is the tough part, unfortunately.
You have to estimate how often you are beaten by your opponent in order to determine if you can profitably call or not. To do this you can use a program such as equilab to plug in hands that you think your opponent may have and the hand that you currently hold. To learn more about estimating what your opponent may be holding see the article poker hand range: the comprehensive beginner guide. From the example above, we plug in some hands we think our opponent may have and see that we have 34% equity:
Pot Odds Poker Explained Against
4. Determine if we can profitably call.
Since our equity is greater than our pot odds, we can profitably call the river bet. If our equity were less than the pot odds being offered, we would have to fold as we cannot c call.
How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example
Let's take a similar situation (confronted with a bet), except this time we are on the flop with KQs, and we have a flush draw with nine outs. A King and Queen which could be considered outs, but they aren't clean outs. This means even if we hit our hand we still may not win (say for example our opponent has AA).
1. Work out equity percentage:
Since we have nine clean outs, we can simply go to the number 9 on the card and then determine our equity.
This means that we need a minimum pot odds of 1.9:1 or 38% when we have nine outs on the flop with two cards still to come.
3. Compare pot odds to odds given by bettor.
Our equity is 38%, so we need pot odds of less than 38%. The lower the pot odds, the more profitable the call.
Our pot odds are 12.5/33 which is 37%, and hence we just about have the pot odds to call. However, we are also in positon (and will act last with more information) and have two overcards to the board (both a King and Queen will make top pair good kicker). So this is an easy call.
4. Further reading
We need seven outs to continue, and we have nine outs with a flush draw. See calculating outs for more details.
For more information on how to use this poker cheat sheet see poker and pot odds.
This video will also be useful to you:
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands
In case you aren't familiar with the hand strengths, and hand rankings of poker check out the printout Texas Holdem hands cheat sheet:
(You may also be interested in the rules of texas hold em)
There are a few important things to remember when memorising at the poker hand rankings:
Best Five Cards Win
In poker, it is always the best five cards wins. This means it is not only the pairs that matter if there is no clear winner (nobody has a pair), the decision will go down to high card wins.
Kickers
Pot Odds Poker Explained Odds
Kickers decide the winning hand when two opponents have the same pair or three of a kind. For example, if one opponent has AQ (ace-queen) and another has AJ, the opponent with AQ would win on an A7522 board as he has the five card hand of AAQ75 whereas the second opponent has AAJ75.
Split Pots
Split pots occur when opponents have the same hand. For example, imagine one opponent has A4 and the other A3 on AQ752 board. Both opponents would have five card hand of AAQ75. Neither the 4 or 3 would play.
You can get more information about hand rankings on our web page here.
If you are more visually inclined, check out this video on poker hand rankings:
For more on Texas Hold'em strategy, see poker 101.
Make sure you check out the fan favourite posts:
Common poker mistakes & Texas Holdem Poker Tips
Good luck at the poker tables with your new poker cheat sheet!