Poker Math That Matters

Putting It Together
Pot Odds
Get your thinking caps on because this is a very important
section. So far we've learned many important concepts: how to
work with fractions and ratios, what EV is and how to create an
EV calculation, how to count outs and then how to quickly
estimate the probability of winning from either the flop or turn.
Now we're going to discuss the concept of pot odds. This
section is going to tie together everything we've learned so far to
show us how math works to help us play perfectly if all the cards
were turned over.
The idea of pot odds starts with us comparing the size of the pot
with the size of the bet we must call. This is normally expressed
in a ratio. This is a reward to risk ratio. So, pretend we're on the
flop in a hand, and the pot is $10. It's the villain’s turn, and he
bets $10. The pot would now be $20, and it’s $10 for us to call.
We’d be getting 20:10. We then reduce this to 2:1. We’re
getting 2:1 odds on our call. These odds will tell us how often
we need to win the hand if we call in order to at least break even.
Let’s go back to what we learned previously and convert this to a
fraction. The fraction would be 1
3 or 33.3%. So, in order to at
least break even with our call, we need to win at least 33.3% of
the time. Of course, we’d prefer to win money instead of just
breaking even, so we want to win more than 33.3% of the time.
Another way to approach this problem is using the equation x /
(x+y) where x is the amount we must call, and y is the pot before
our call. In this case, x = $10 and y = $20.
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