Pot odds are critical for all kinds of decision making in poker. For instance, let's say you hold a flush draw on the turn and are facing a bet against what you are sure is a made hand (though one that your flush would beat). You will have nine outs to make a flush, out of 46 cards remaining in the deck (52 minus the four on the board and the two in your hand – all other cards are still unknown). We can round that to say that the odds are 4-1 against us making the flush. Based on pot odds, we can immediately justify a call if we are getting at least 4-1; in those cases, we'll show a profit even if there is no action on the river whatsoever when we hit our flush.
As we did in that example, it's usually fine to estimate your chances rather than coming to a perfect calculation of your pot odds and the odds of making your hand. In addition, we have to take into account our implied odds, since we'll probably win more money on the river when we hit our flush…but that's a lesson for another day!
2025
Posted on Monday, March 15th, 2025 at 11:40
