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Pot odds are the odds the pot is giving you for calling a bet. Put simply, its a ratio of how much it is for you to call a raise in comparison to the money already in the pot.
Pot Odds - A Basic Example
If the pot has been raised $20 from $80 up to $100 then your getting pot odds of 5 to 1 ie. it costs you $20 to call in a $100 pot ($100/$20).
Heres an example to help illustrate when you would need pot odds :
Your in late position and get dealt   . Everyone folds except the big blind who checks with the big blind sitting at $20.
The flop comes :
  
The player in big blind raises $25. Since he was on big blind and checked you dont think he has a great card but you suspect he's at least hit a pair. He could have something like   or   . It doesn't matter - just about every hand is beating you at this stage.
Remember, you have a flush draw and you assume that if another club drops you'll have the best hand. As we can see from our Odds Chart, the odds of hitting one of your clubs on the turn is 19.1% which is about 5.2 to 1 (You have 9 outs for the flush). This is where pot odds come into play.
Before the big blind raised the pot was sitting at $50 ie. $20 from you, $20 from the big blind and $10 from the small blind who folded. He has raised the pot $25 up to $75 giving you pot odds of 3 to 1. However, you are only going to hit the cards you need roughly once in every 5 times ie. since the odds of hitting your cards are not as good as the pot odds you are getting, you should fold.
Pot Odds - Continued
Odds are based on the premise that if you make the right decision over time you'll win and if you make the wrong decision, over time you'll lose more money than you'll win. In the example above, calling when the odds are against you has negative expectation. Conversely, calling has positive expectation for the other player.
There are a lot of things to bear in mind with the above example and with pot odds in general. Odds give you the base for being a good poker player however they are not the be all and end all. Remember, some players play with any two cards, some players dont bluff much, some players bluff all the time - take everything into consideration including pot odds when deciding to call.
Post a thread in our Theory, Advice, Strategies Room if your unsure about any of this.
Click here to return to the THF Odds Main Page.
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