Understanding Poker Pot Odds
Poker is a game of chances and poker pot odds will help you to increase your chances of winning a game. All the money up for bet in a game is known as the pot. In your journey to become an accomplished poker player, understanding how poker pot odds work can make the difference between being a winner or a loser. If you’re a beginner, it will definitely help to understand how odds work and how they help in any poker game.
Pot Odds: What Are They?
When a player has the draw hand, he has to be able to determine his odds of winning. This will enable them make informed decisions of when to make a call or raise a hand. This means that when in full play, a player can know based on poker pot odds if it’s time to fold or call. Presumably, any player thinks of odds already have an idea of how the selected poker game works.
Calculating Odds
You may be wondering why a lot of mathematics has to go into playing poker. You probably thought it was just going to involve being served a couple of cards and counting on your luck to be the winner. This could be true for those who are playing for fun and won’t be bothered about becoming good at the games. For those who intend to become poker masters, it is only necessary to understand the different odds involved in the game and how to use them to decide if a game is worth continuing.
There are two ways of calculating poker pot odds which are the ratio method and the percentage method. Nonetheless, which ever method that is used to calculate the odds, the results will always be the same. In the ratio method, the first step is to calculate the card odds. The card odd is the probability that a player will be able to draw the same suit of card as one of the cards they have in hand.
This is usually based on the ratio of the number of cards remaining in deck that will make the flush and those that wouldn’t. The pot odd is then calculated by getting the ratio of the total amount of money in the pot including the opponent’s bet to that of a player’s own bet. If the ratio for the pot odd is higher than that obtained in the card bet, then the player is in a good position to win. The percentage method works in a similar manner but this time, it’s the card equity that is calculated as a percentage compared to the poker pot odds calculated also as a percentage. To its credit, most people find the percentage method easier to understand.
If you can master the calculation of poker pot odds, you’re well on your way to becoming an accomplished poker player. It would take a few tries before you get the hang of it. In any case the premise is to understand that you stand a better chance of winning if your pot odds are higher than the card odds.
