Pot Odds: How To Know If A Call Pays

The Formula

Required Equity Is The Amount You Must Call Divided By The Total Pot After Your Call. If The Pot Is 100 And Your Opponent Bets 50, The Pot Becomes 150 And Your Call Of 50 Makes It 200, So You Need 50 Divided By 200, Which Is 25%. If Your Hand Wins At Least That Often, Calling Makes Money Over Time. If It Wins Less Often, Folding Does.

The Same Idea Is Often Stated As A Ratio. Facing That Half Pot Bet You Are Risking 50 To Win 150, Odds Of 3 To 1, Which Break Even At One Win In Every 4 Tries. Ratios And Percentages Describe The Same Price; Percentages Are Easier To Compare With Your Equity.

The Price Of Every Common Bet Size

The Table Shows The Equity A Call Needs Against Each Common Size. The Bigger The Bet Relative To The Pot, The More Equity You Need, But The Price Never Reaches 50%, Because The Pot You Are Playing For Always Includes Money That Was Already In The Middle.

Using It At The Table

Pot Odds Tell You The Price. They Do Not Tell You Your Equity, Which You Have To Estimate From Your Hand And Your Opponent's Likely Range. A Flush Draw On The Turn, For Example, Hits 19.6% Of The Time By The River, About One Time In Five, So It Can Call A Small Bet But Not A Large One Unless Something Else Pays For The Call.

Two Things Change The Simple Answer. Implied Odds Are The Extra Money You Expect To Win On Later Streets When You Hit, Which Makes Some Calls That Fail The Pot Odds Test Profitable. Reverse Implied Odds Are The Money You Lose On Later Streets When You Hit And Are Still Behind, Which Makes Some Calls That Pass The Test Worse Than They Look.

Before The Flop The Same Arithmetic Explains Why The Big Blind Defends So Widely: It Already Has A Blind In The Pot, So It Is Offered A Much Better Price Than Any Other Seat. After The Flop, Work Out The Price First, Then Ask Whether Your Hand Clears It Against The Range You Are Facing, Not Against The Single Hand You Fear Most.

Practise The Arithmetic Until The Common Sizes Are Automatic. A Third Pot Bet Asks For 20%, A Pot Sized Bet Asks For 33.3%, And Every Other Size Falls Between Them Or Beyond. Knowing Those Anchors Lets You Spend Your Thinking Time On The Range Question, Which Is Where Most Of The Difficulty Is.

Practise It On Smarter.Poker

The Answer Above Is Complete. When You Want To Drill It, These Are The Matching Training Tools.

• Play EV Calculations The Training Game For This Lesson.
• Open The Equity Calculator
• Open Jarvis Training Insights Jarvis Explains Your Training Decisions In Words.