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Understanding Poker Odds

In Poker, there are two main types of odds, the odds of winning and pot odds. If you have ideal odds of one or the other, you’re in a good position. There aren’t many times when you’ll have the benefit of both good odds of winning and good pot odds, but understanding the two types of odds is important if you want to win the game.

Here we’ll be explaining both types of odds and how you can calculate them as you’re playing. As with any form of online gambling, knowing your odds is essential and helps to shape your decisions and ultimately win more.

Pot Odds

Pot odds are the ratio between the size of the pot and the size of the bet you’re facing. They should be used alongside the winning odds to determine the likely outcome of your success. With pot odds, you’ll be working out exactly how much you could potentially win from each dollar you’re prepared to bet.

As an example, let’s say the pot is at $100 and the bet you need to call is $50. At this point, the pot is $100 plus your opponent’s bet of $50 and your potential call of $50 for a total of $200. The pot odds would then be $50 divided by $200 or 0.25. Multiplied by 100 this gives us the percentage odds of 25%.

In this example, you’ll need to win more than 25% of the time in order to make a profit by calling your opponent’s bet. The skill in Poker comes from working out whether your hand has at least 25% equity compared to the potential hands of your opponent.

Winning Odds

While Pot odds show how much you can potentially win from your bet, winnings odds are simply the chances that you have of winning. By themselves, the pot odds are not that useful, but when you combine them with the winning odds, it gives you a much better picture of your chances and which action you should take.

To calculate your winnings odds, you’ll first need to know about outs. Outs are cards that can potentially come up and improve your hand. The number of potential outs you have will depend on your hand. You calculate your winning odds by multiplying the number of outs by 4 if you’re on the flop, and 2.2 if you’re on the turn.

As an example, let’s say that you have a hand with two spades and Ace of spades. The dealer deals a flop containing a nine of spades, a Queen of spades, and a King of hearts. You’ll only need one more spade to make a flush, and it can be dealt with from the next two rounds. There are thirteen cards in each suite, and you currently have four on the table. That means there are nine spades remaining (we have to ignore the fact that other players could have spades in their hands).

As there are nine outs in this example and the stage is the flop, you find out the winning odds by multiplying nine by four. This gives us 36% as our probability of winning this hand.

For the same hand on the turn, you’d again have nine outs, but this time you’ll be multiplying by 2.2. This gives you a probability of 19.8%. Obviously, the chance of success is lower because you can only win from the final card on the river being a spade.

Odds and Expected Value

In Poker once you know your pot odds and your winning odds, you can use them together to find out the expected value (EV) of playing that hand. You do this by subtracting the pot odds from the winning odds. If you’re left with a number above zero, proceeding with your hand and making the call is profitable. If you have a negative number, you should fold, as it’s not worth it for the odds.

As an example, let’s say you have the winning odds of 36% with pot odds of 25%. This would give you an expected value of 11, meaning you should call and continue with your hand. If you have winning odds of 19.8%, meanwhile, with pot odds of 25, your expected value would be -5.2. In this scenario, you’d be better off folding to avoid losing more money by calling.

We hope we made you understand, the concept of Poker Odds.

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