When you play No-Limit Texas Holdem, pot odds can help you make better betting decisions. By comparing pot odds with hand odds, you‘ll know when to call certain bets, and when to throw your hand away and wait for a better betting opportunity.

Understanding Pot Odds

Pot odds are pretty simple to understand. When you need to decide whether to make a call, you have to consider how many chips are already in the pot. If you need to call a $10 bet and there’s $100 already in the pot, then you’ll have 10 to 1 pots odds. These odds are quite favorable. Pot odds alone aren’t going to help you make a decision on whether or not you should bet. If you want to make the most informed decision based on your pot odds, then you need to consider your hand odds as well.

Understanding Hand Odds

When you examine your poker hand odds, your aim is to figure out what the likelihood will be for you to hit your hand. To start, you need to calculate the number of outs you have (based on the number of cards that are in play). Let’s say that you’re holding K J and a rainbow flop (all unsuited cars) comes out Q 10 7. In this drawing hand, you’re goal is to hit the straight. You can make a straight if a nine or an ace comes out on the board. Since a card in either direction will help you, you have an open-ended straight draw.

Now, what are the odds that you will hit your straight on the next card? Well, there are four aces and four nines in each deck of 52 cards. Out of 52 cards, you have eight possible outs. There are already two cards in your hand and three on the board. That leaves 47 cards in play. Of those 47, eight cards will help you hit your straight and 37 cards won’t. By dividing the number of cards that won’t help you (37), by the number of cards that will (8), you’ll be able to determine that you have a 4.8 to 1 chance of not making your straight on the turn card.

Conclusion

If the odds are 4.8 to 1 that you won’t hit your straight, then the pot has to be at least five times the amount of the bet that you have to call. Your pot odds have to be greater than your hand odds for you to make the statistically correct call. If the pot odds are greater than 5 to 1, go ahead and chase your straight.