How To Work Out Pot Odds In Texas Holdem

4/10/2022/ Comments off

One of the most basic but also the most crucial skills for a poker player is the ability to quickly calculate how many outs you have to a winning hand.

The Texas Hold'em odds for each of the different situations have been given in both percentage and ratio odds, so use whichever format you feel comfortable with. Other poker odds charts. For more useful odds charts that you can use for when you are working out whether or not to call when on a drawing hand, use the following tables.

It may seem complicated at first, but in reality it only takes a little practice for it to become second nature.

When you play poker the best-case scenario would be to always put your money in with the best hand. That just isn't the reality, though. You are going to put your money in bad from time to time.

Related Reading:

In a community card poker game like Texas Hold’em, you’ll occasionally find yourself in a situation where the betting has completed, but not all the cards are dealt. The players’ hole cards are turned over and everyone can see what each person needs to draw on the river to win the pot. The most straightforward explanation of how to calculate pot odds is to compare the total number of unknown cards to how many outs you have, and then do some simple division. For example, if you are four to a nut flush on the turn of a Texas Hold 'em game, there are 46 unknown cards, (52 minus your 2 pocket cards and 4 on the board). Learn how to calculate your pot odds in Texas Hold'em and becoming a winning player. Want to master Microsoft Excel and take your work-from-home job prospects to the next level? Jump-start your career with our Premium A-to-Z Microsoft Excel Training Bundle from the new Gadget Hacks Shop and get lifetime access to more than 40 hours of Basic to.

How to Count Your Outs

In those cases where you are putting your money in bad, the idea is that you are able to make a hand on a later street that is better than your opponent's. The cards that give you that winning hand are known as 'outs.'

An example: You have A♣K♣. Your opponent accidentally shows you J♦9♦10♠J♣3♣ board. How many outs do you have?

Well, you have two overcards to his jack, meaning that three aces and three kings are outs to a higher pair. You also have four queens that would give you the nut straight, and you have nine clubs that can give you the nut flush.

Of course, you double-counted one of your outs. You can't count the queen of clubs twice. So when you recount, you have a total of 18 outs. That's a lot of cards that can come on the turn to help you.

An 18-out draw is very big, and actually makes you a favorite against top pair on the flop.

How to work out pot odds in texas holdemin texas hold em

Put Your Opponent on a Hand Range

In reality it's never going to be obvious as in the above example - your villain is not going to actually show you his cards. So you must be able to put him on a range of likely hands. Once you have his approximate range, it becomes easier to calculate your outs.

You're never going to be able to put your opponent on an exact hand, so calculating outs will never be exact. Your calculations will ultimately only be as accurate as the hand range you put your opponent on.

If in the example above you give your opponent J♠J♥, you have significantly fewer outs. No longer do your three remaining aces and kings give you the winning hand.

Furthermore, you can hit your hand on the turn and still lose should the river pair the board.

$Work$

When calculating outs, keep in mind that it's not an exact science and that sometimes a card you may think is an out may not actually give you the best hand.

What Are 'Half Outs' in Poker?

Sometimes your perceived outs only count as half outs. Let's take a look at an example:

You have 8♠9♠. The board is 10♥J♥3♦. You have four sevens and four queens that will give you a straight. Meaning you have eight outs. Correct?

Yes and no. Sometimes you are going to hit your straight, but that card will also make your opponent a flush, improving you to a second-best hand.

In this example the Q♥ and the 7♥ are not worth a full out to you. Thus you should only count them as half outs each. Meaning in reality you only have seven outs.

Counting the Q♥ and the 7♥ as half outs accounts for those times where you will make your straight yet still lose to your opponent's flush.

What Are Hidden Outs in Poker?

Occasionally you are going to come across a hand where you may even have hidden outs. They are called hidden outs because they may not immediately help your hand but they may actually hurt your opponent's hand.

A quick example:

You hold A♥A♣5♠6♣9♦K♥ board. Your opponent holds 6♠5♥ for two pair. On the river you can be saved by the A♦ or the A♠, which will give you a set, but you can also be saved by the board pairing either the nine or the king.

This would counterfeit your opponent's two pair and give you a higher, winning two pair. While neither a nine nor a king actually hits your hole cards, it still improves your hand to a winning two pair. This is what is known as a 'hidden out.'

Poker is Outs and Pot Odds

As with honing any skill, practice makes perfect. Once you are able to accurately calculate your outs you will be able to correctly determine the pot odds you require to continue with a hand.

And once you have that down, you've pretty much mastered poker. Poker, simplified, is two things:

Putting your money in good and/or
Putting your money in with good odds

When you have those two skills in the bag, the rest is easy.

More Beginner Strategy Articles:

Hopefully you’ve already absorbed a wealth of knowledge from our poker lessons. There’s still much to learn – in fact you’ll never stop learning about poker. Before moving onto the next stage of your poker development let’s review some of the typical mistakes that beginners make when playing Texas hold’em.

Although one or two of the mistakes we’re going to mention are relevant to no-limit hold’em, the majority are applicable to all forms of hold’em, in addition to other poker formats. Please use this lesson as a guide, so that you don’t fall into the same traps.

The Top 10 Typical Beginner Mistakes

In no particular order, here are our top ten typical beginner mistakes:

#1 – Playing Too Many Hands

One of the main mistakes new players make is feeling like they have to play every hand. They may become impatient, feel left out of the action or don’t want to look weak in front of their friends. It could also be that they just don’t know any better. Any Jack, Queen, King or Ace looks good if you don’t understand good starting hand selection.

The problem with playing too many hands is that you are actually only going to hit the flop a small percentage of the time and even if you do hit the flop; it’s hard to know if your hand is the best. Until you understand how to play beyond the cards, you will mostly be playing based on what you are dealt and if you are involved in too many pots, the next thing you know all of your chips will be gone.

#2 – Playing Scared

While some beginners play with reckless abandon, many play with fear. Having not played many hands, new poker players are often afraid to make a mistake or they simply are afraid to lose. Because of this they will fold until they know they have an unbeatable hand. Fear can also manifest itself into paranoia, where a player assumes that anyone betting aggressively must have a monster hand (often referred to as “monsters under the bed”) and they will fold all but the best possible hands. The only way to get over this is to log in time at the poker tables and practice trusting your instincts.

#3 – Getting Committed to a Hand

Because of the competitive nature of poker, beginners think that poker is like other sports where “giving up” is considered a bad thing. While you shouldn’t play passively, poker is not like other sports and it is often the correct play to fold. When you first start playing poker, it’s easy to get emotionally attached to a hand. This might be a pre-flop hand like a pocket pair or making a pair on the flop. You stay in a hand because you don’t want to get bluffed out of a pot or look weak – or because the competitor in you says there is no way to win if you fold. Unfortunately, by continuously calling bets you never really know where you stand in the hand until it’s too late.

#4 – Improper Bet Sizes

This one is primarily related to no limit and pot limit games. Understanding how to correctly size your bets in these games to manipulate the action comes with experience of playing poker. However, such common betting mistakes that beginners tend to make are easy to fix. New players often raise or bet at the extremes – meaning too little or too much. Some common examples of this are raising the minimum pre-flop in no limit games when there are several players who have already entered the pot or raising 5x-6x the size of the blinds when you are first to enter a hand.

Miss-sizing of bets also occurs after the flop. Beginners will bet the minimum with big hands (two pair or a set) when there are lots of players in the hand allowing them to draw cheaply to a better hand. Conversely, they may also over bet to “protect” their hand. In most cases, these are both incorrect. Ideally, in poker you want to bet an amount that maximizes how much you can win and minimizes how much you can lose.

#5 – Chasing

Similar to #3, a beginner will often stay in a hand hoping other cards will appear that could improve their hand. This could include straight and flush draws, but also calling bets in order to pair an Ace or a second card for two pair. Calling on a draw isn’t necessarily a wrong, but the mistake that beginners often make is chase getting improper pot odds to do so. While you might hit the card(s) you need in one particular hand, if you are chasing without the right odds you will lose money in the long run.

#6 – Overvaluing Marginal Hands

A very common mistake among beginners is playing hands that look good on the surface, but in reality hold little value or are easily dominated by other hands. In hold’em, examples include suited cards or face cards with bad kickers (K3, Q5, etc.). Additionally, this includes high hand combinations like QT, KJ or A9. While these hands are not unplayable, knowing how to play them comes with experience. The challenge with these face cards is that there aren’t many flops that you can be confident that you have the best hand. Even if you do make a pair, you can easily be out-kicked or beaten by a higher pocket pair.

#7 – Letting Emotions Affect Your Play

Whether it is from a bad day at work or a bad beat at the table, emotions can affect how you make decisions. This can result in unprofitable poker actions like chasing losses, making desperate moves or allowing your ego to take over. Beginners will often make rash, emotional decisions that can act like blinders, preventing them from taking in all the information they need to make a smart decision. Stuff happens. So if you feel like you are starting to make emotional decisions in a poker game, just take a step back and reset your mind.

#8 – Playing Out of Position

There are many other factors that weigh into a poker decision beyond just the cards. Your position in relation to the order in which the action occur is one of them. Being able to act last in a hand allows you to see how everyone else is going to act before making your decision. This is a very powerful concept. The mistake beginner poker players make is entering a pot or calling a raise out of position without a plan. They get lost in the hand because they don’t have enough information about where they stand.

#9 – Bluffing Too Much

Some players who are new to the game think poker is all about bluffing. While it is satisfying to bluff someone out of a pot, you should develop an optimal percentage of bluffing in order to not become predictable. For a bluff to work, your opponents need to think you have a real poker hand. If you are always bluffing, your bluffs will not be believable and people will start to look you up. Another component to bluffing is that your bets need to tell a believable story and you should be representing a particular hand instead of just random aggression.

#10 – Playing Above Your Bankroll

Even if you are only playing poker recreationally, it is still important to manage a poker bankroll. Most beginners do not understand the role that variance plays in poker. You can be playing great, but still go through a long losing streak. If you don’t manage your poker money properly and play within your limits, you will burn through your money. Even if you develop the skills to play at a higher level, if you don’t have the bankroll to withstand the inevitable variance that comes with poker, you will go broke.