If you’ve ever read any poker strategy literature you are familiar with the term pot odds. This very common poker term means the ratio between the size of the pot and the size of the bet you are required to call in order to see the next community card, or in some cases, to see if your completed hand will win the pot. Sometimes pot odds are used to determine whether a bluff on the end is a lucrative play (“The pot was laying me 8 to 1 on my bet, and I figured there was a 4 to 1 chance he would lay down his hand if I stabbed at the pot on the river.”) However, this segment will not be discussing that aspect of pot odds. We’re going to talk about what pot odds mean for calling with drawing hands.
It’s happened hundreds of times to all poker players. You’re sitting on a four flush going into the turn, but by the end of the hand you come up dry. In fact, this scenario plays out approximately 2 out of every 3 times you make a flush draw on the flop. Because the overall odds are stacked against you, the size of the current pot is what determines how your hand should be played. Let’s say you have 4♠5♠ and get a free play in the big blind against the small blind and one other player. The pot is now $9 and the flop comes A♦9♠7♣. For some strange reason it gets checked around, and the free turn is the J♠. You have just made a four flush with one card left to come, and the odds against you making your hand are 4.1:1 (you make the flush about 20% of the time, 19.6% to be more precise). This time the player behind you bets and the small blind calls, bringing the pot to $21. It will cost you $6 to see the next card, what do you do? It’s easy: $21 x 0.20 = $4.20 which is less than the required $6 you would need call, so you fold. Sure, you would probably collect at least $6 more if you hit, but even $27 x 0.20 = $5.40, which is still too little. Even if you count on collecting $12 more if you hit (which is incorrect), $33 x 0.20 = $6.60, which means it is still basically a break-even play.
Here’s Another Way of Looking at the Same Situation:
When you have a 20% chance of making the winning hand, you own 20% of the money which is currently in the pot. So if the pot is $100, you own $20 of it. If it is going to cost you $10 to call, you will profit about $10 every time you do so (Actually, it’s a little more due to the implied odds which is money that will probably go into the pot after you hit your draw). When you are on a draw, especially when going into the river, you are being laid a price to purchase your “share” of the pot. If the price is less than your share amounts to, you are getting a good deal and therefore making money.
But Wait, There’s More:
There are other more subtle aspects to pot odds, too. For one, it is rare to be in a situation where your are exactly sure of your number of outs, and in turn, positive that hitting one will give you the best hand. In the fist example hand involving the 4♠5♠, one player may have been slow-playing the A♠7♠. In this worst-case-scenario, your 20% equity in the pot just went to zero. There are no cards in the deck that will give you the winning hand, and if you do hit a spade, it’s going to cost you a lot. Also, if a player held A♣7♥, your equity drops from 20% to about 15% because the A♠ and 7♠ are no longer wins for you. What this means is that is frequently necessary to adjust the pot odds in order to give yourself a more realistic price for making a winning play. After a while, you won’t need to do the actual math, the right play will arrive by intuition. And that’s pot odds for ya.
