POT ODDS AND KNOWING WHEN TO CALL WITH DRAWS

Pot Odds uses mathematics to help you work out whether or not to call a bet when holding a drawing hand. As you may already know, you should always try and get to see the next card as cheaply as possible when on a draw, and you should fold when you think the price to make the call is too much. However, what if your opponent makes a bet that puts you in two minds about whether or not to call? It is in these situations that you can use pot odds to accurately determine whether or not it will be profitable to make the call in the long run.

Pot odds uses the likelihood of completing your draw along with the size of the bet you are facing to determine whether a call will be making you money in the long run. It makes sense that if you have a hand like an inside-straight draw and you are facing a very large bet, it is unlikely that you will make your hand enough times to come out a winner. Similarly, if you have a great draw like an open-ended straight and flush draw and you are facing a very small bet, it would be wrong to fold and give up a hand with so much potential. So here is how you work out and use pot odds:

The Calculation

1] Firstly, you have to work out how likely it is that you will complete your draw. This is done by comparing the total number of cards left in the deck that will not complete your draw against the total number of cards that will complete your draw.

Say for example you are in the middle of the following hand:

Your Hand: A 4
The Flop: Q T 6

To the observant amongst you, you will see that you have a flush draw. Using our the information from the cards in out hand and the cards on the flop, we can work out that:

• There are 47 cards that we haven't seen (52 cards in a deck, minus 2 in our hand, minus 3 on the flop)

And out of these 47 cards that we do not know about, there are:

• 9 cards that will complete our draw (13 spades in a deck, minus 2 in our hand and minus 2 on the flop)
• 38 cards that will not complete our draw (47-9 = 38)

If we put these two figures to create a ratio of cards that will complete our hand and cards that won't, we get a ratio of 38:9, or roughly 4:1.

2] Next we have to find a similar ratio to compare with the above ratio using the total amount of money in the pot and the amount that we have to call to continue with our hand. Say for example our opponent bets $5 creating a total pot of $15; we have to call $5 to continue with our hand. If we put these figures together as we did in the previous instance we get a ratio of $15:$5, or put more simply 3:1. We know compare these two ratios from the cards and the pot to find out whether or not it will be profitable to make the call.

Because the pot ratio of 3:1 is smaller than the ratio odds of 4:1 for us to make our hand, we should fold. This is because we would be putting more money into the pot than we would be winning back, and so we would be losing more money for every time we miss our draw than for every time we made it. However, if our opponent bet $2.50 instead of $5, we would have had 5:1 odds, which would have been bigger than the odds we would be getting to complete our draw. Therefore is this particular instance, it would be correct to make the call to try and complete our hand. So the rules of pot odds are:

• If your pot odds are smaller than the odds you have to complete your draw, you should fold
• If your pot odds are bigger than the odds you have to complete your draw, you should call

It all looks pretty tricky at first, but after you get used to it and start using it more in your game, it gets pretty easy.

Do you have to work out these odds everytime?

After reading through that calculation for the first time, it seems like a lot of work to just figure out whether or not to make a call. On top of this, the thought of having to work out these odds every time you are on a draw seems like all too much of a hassle. However, if you can get a decent grasp on how pot odds work, you will rarely ever need to actually go through each individual step to try and figure out the exact pot odds of the situation.

After a month or so, you start to become familiar with the odds of each situation and you can come to a decision almost instantaneously when faced with a bet. For example, I easily know that:

• My odds for a flush on the flop for the turn are roughly 4:1
• My odds for a straight on the flop for the turn are roughly 4:1

Therefore I know that if I am faced with a bet that gives me worse than 4:1 odds to call for a flush (e.g. a $2 bet into a $5 pot), I should fold. After about a month or so working with pot odds in your head, these odds will be simple to use and work out, so don't fear if it all looks overly confusing right now.

ThePokerBank has a great ratio odds chart for those looking to quickly work out the odds for each situation.

Summary

It is important to note that every pot odds calculation is based on whether or not the call or fold will be profitable in the long run. Using pot odds does not mean that you will be able to find out whether or not your card will come, but instead it will tell you whether or not you will be making a winning or a losing play if you decide to call. Therefore you should never be frustrated or disappointed if you decide to fold and your card arrives on the next round, because if you didn’t have the correct odds to call, you were making the best play no matter what comes out.

It may appear a little confusing the first time you look over the mathematics of pot odds, but it is far simpler than you may think. After you start to understand and use it in your game, it will become far easier and you will wonder why you found them so hard to use in the first place. It is also great to be able to confidently know whether or not to call bets in drawing situations, so I highly recommend that you work to get your knowledge of pot odds up to scratch before your next poker session. You will thank me for it when you come up against your next tough drawing decision!

For further reading, check out the article on implied odds.

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