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Poker
Odds Explained
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Poker Odds - Pot Odds And Hand Odds Explained
by: Oddvar Pettersen
To be successful at poker you should, at any time during the play of a hand, be able to calculate the odds of catching your hand to the odds the pot is giving you.
Knowing the probability of making a specific hand in poker can be done by calculating hand odds. Figuring out how many outs you have will give you the possibility of calculating the number of times you will hit your hand by the river.
Lets say your'e dealt A-9 of hearts in Texas Hold'em and the flop comes up showing two hearts. Your hand odds for hitting another heart by the river will be approximately 36% or 3 to 1. (you will hit your hand 1 out of 3 times)
You can figure this out by first finding the number of outs that you have. Outs are the number of cards remainig in the deck ( not visibe to you) that can help you make your hand.
So if we are using the hand above as an example and you hold A-9 of hearts and catch two hearts on the flop, than you have 9 more hearts in the deck that can help you complete your flush. 2 hearts in your hand + 2 hearts on the table minus 13 hearts in total = 9 outs.
If you multiply your number of outs by 4, than you will get an approximate percentage of hitting your hand by the river (9x4=36%).
Poker pot odds is the a ratio between the size of the pot compared to how much it will cost you to call a bet from another player. The higher the ratio between the size of the pot and the cost of calling a bet, the better your poker pot odds are.
If there are $40 in the pot after the flop and a player bets $10 and two other players calls his bet then you are getting 7 to 1 in pot odds. If you are chasing the A-9 flush draw from the flop, than you are getting 36% or 3 to 1 in hand odds to catch your card at the river, so calling or even raising this bet will be a correct decision to make.
TRUE
POKER GUIDE. WWW.POKERRULE-ONLINE.COM. Oddvar Pettersen
True Poker Guide was established as a website to provide information on rules
and strategies for all poker games played at home, online and in casinos.
Get the Odds on your side with math!
J Porter
Chances and probabilities are important to the game of poker, they require a little bit of math, but they are really not that tricky once you practice with them. The key is to spend some time working with them so you get comfortable in using them, and understand what is going on.
Why are Chances and Probabilities Important
Why must we understand odds and probabilities ? As I explained in another article, the skill part of poker, to a big extent, consists of making good bets and avoiding bad gambles. The participant who makes the best decisions will win in the long term. If you were to put up a greenback for every head that turned up, and your friend put up a greenback for every tail that turned up, you would have an even bet. Since the chances of a head or tail on any coin flip are equal, your chances are also one to one. One time you will win, and one time you will lose. In this example, both you and your friend expect to win the same amount over time, $0. This is neither a good gamble nor a bad bet, but neutral. The chances of flipping heads and tails will still be even, but you get paid more when you win, so over time you will make a profit. This is a gamble you should take since you expect to make a profit over time. If you had to put up $2, and your friend put up only $1, you would expect to lose money. This would be a bad gamble for you.
In a coin flipping example, the choices are easy to understand, since there are only two possibilities. This is not always the case.
Probability
Probability is the likelihood that something will happen.
In simple cases like a coin flip, or the chance of rain, where there are only two possibilities, the two probabilities will add to 100% . In some situations however there will be more than two possibilities. If we only calculate some of the probabilities, they will not add up to 100%, because we did not consider all of the possibilities, but those possibilities still exist, and must add up to 100% in total.
Another way to write the same information is to say that there is a. two probability of rain, and that there is therefore a. 8 probability that it will not rain.
Odds
Odds are a different way of expressing the same information , but in a way that is often more applicable to poker and other gambling games. By convention this notation indicates that the chances are five to 1 against the event occurring.
There are different ways of saying the same thing, and of explaining what the numbers mean. The notation tells us that five times we will fail to get the card we need, and one time, we will get the card we need. Using that same example, we will get the card we need one time in half a dozen attempts, or 1/6.
Working with Odds and Probability
Note that tho probability is normally stated as a percentage, or a decimal number, percentages and decimal numbers are simply fractions expressed, or written, in a different way. If you divide the one on top, by the half a dozen on the bottom, you get. 167, or 16. All 3 of these numbers mean exactly the same thing, there is a probability of 1/6, or. 167, or 16. 7% of getting the card we need. 167 or 16. 167, or. 833, or 83. 3%. Once you know the probability of getting the card, and the probability of not getting the card, you can put that information into the form of odds. In our example that becomes 83. 7 against getting the card.
You normally reduce chances to the form X:1 to make comparisons easier. e. in the example 83. 3:16. 7 you divide 16. 7 by 16. 3 by 16. 7 to get five, giving you 5:1, which is exactly where we started.
Of course if you do the math you will see that I rounded the number off in all cases since numbers like. 167,. 833 and 5 are plenty accurate enough.
Going back to the weather example from the beginning, there is a 20% chance of rain, which means that there is an 80% chance that it will not rain. Putting these numbers in the form of odds, it is 80:20 against it raining. Simplifying, divide both sides by 20 and you get 4:1 against it raining. You can put this back into the form of a probability by adding the two numbers together and then putting the right number on top, i. four plus one is 5, put the 1 from the right side on top of that and you get 1/5. There is one chance in 5 that it will rain. To express the fraction as a decimal number, divide the number on top by the number on the bottom, i. e. one divided by five and you get. two. To express that as a percentage, multiply by 100 and you get 20% chance of rain. Right back with the number we started with, because they are all ways of saying the same thing. For instance , on the 1st card you are dealt, the chances of getting an Ace are 12:1, the odds of getting an Snake eyes on the second card, given that you got an Ace on the 1st, are 16:1. If you want to know the chances of getting a pair of Aces however, you can not calculate them directly from the odds, you must use probabilities.
Using probabilities to do this, there are four Aces out of 52 cards, so the probability of getting an Snake eyes on the first card is 4/52 or 1/13. The chances of getting an Ace on the 2nd card are 3 Aces, since we already have 1, in 51 remaining cards, which is 3/51 or 1/17.
You can do this in one of two ways. You can multiply the fractions 4/52 * 3/51, or 1/13 * 1/17, to get 12/2652 or 1/221 and then convert to chances. i.
You can also convert each of the fractions to decimals, 4/52 ~. 077, and 3/51 ~. 059, then multiply. 077 *. 059 ~. Since there is a. 4525% chance of getting a couple of Aces, there is a 100 -. 4525 = 99. 5475% chance of not getting a couple of Aces.
Note that when doing a series of operations such as above, you can't round the numbers off until you complete all of the calculations or it will seriously affect your results.
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