You've seen articles that try to explain odds and it ends up looking like some complicated math formula that only Stephen Hawking could understand. Here I'll show you a much easier way to calculate your odds of winning. This will give you a better way to measure whether you should call, raise or fold.

First lets define some things.

Pot odds: The odds of the cops busting us with our pot? No its not that.

Simply put its how much we have to pay into the pot. If the pot is 100 and we have to pay 50 dollars to continue then our pot odds are 50%. We have to pay 50% of the current pot to continue. Thats it.

The next is your hand odds or chances of getting the cards you need to improve your hand.

Say you have AK of spades and the flop comes down.

4s,7s,Jh

Ok we have two spades, and two are on the board. There are 13 total spades in the deck and 2 are on the board and we have the other 2 in our hand. 13spades-4=9 spades left.

Ok we know our King and Ace could beat that Jack. 3 other kings and 3 other aces left in the deck equals 6 more outs. We add those 6 to our 9 and we have 15 outs!

Now on every FLOP take your outs and multiply them by 4. That will give you your percentage of hitting your cards. so in this case 15x4=60% If you're down to the river card take the same number of outs and multiply by 2. So at the river our odds of hitting drop to 30%.


So lets say you're playing in the 20k room and the pot is 10,000 so far after someone just bet 5,000. You have to call 5000 in a pot that is already 10000. That means our pot odds are 50%, we have to pay 50% of the pot.

We calculated our odds of winning up above to be 60%.

So our odds of winning 60% are greater than what we have to pay (50% of the pot). So the decision is easy, we call.
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Ok different example.

Say its a 10k pot again and we have to pay 5K to continue.

We have 2c,3c and the flop comes down

Ah,4d,Kc

Our super tight opponent makes no bones that he has AceKing and bets 10k into a 10k pot. The pot is now 20k and you have to bet 10k into it to continue. That means you have to pay 50%. (20k divided by 10k=50%)

Only one card can save you here and its the 5 (to get the A,2,3,4,5 wheel straight) There are 4 of them. 4x4=16% chance of hitting.

OK so we can compare here. We have to pay 50% and our odds of hitting are 16%. We should fold here.

Thats all there is to it. This simple math can keep you out of alot of trouble.