Poker Odds for Beginners – Part I

Poker odds can seem confusing at first, but if you’re serious about poker, you need to follow them. Having a basic understanding of them is essential. This short, practical guide will give you all the tools you need to win at both the online and live tables. Then buckle up, because we’re going to take a short drive through the world of poker odds. Let’s start with the basics, with odds and what they mean.

How Odds Work

When the odds are particularly stacked against you, you will often be referred to as a “long shot,” which usually means it will be a cold day in hell before success.

Let's say you bet on a horse race and have the following odds:

7:1 – This means that for every $1 you bet, you will receive a payout of $7. So if you bet $10, you will win $70.

Higher odds usually mean you have less chance of winning. If someone offers you odds of 100:1 it means they are convinced you don't have a good chance of winning.

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 Poker Odds tell you the probability of winning any given hand.

Before we can get into a discussion of poker odds when playing online poker, you need to know how to calculate your “outs.” Outs are simply the cards that will help you improve your hand and make it better than the one you think your opponent is holding. To calculate your odds, you first need to know the number of cards that will make you win, also called “outs.”

Using “Outs” to Calculate Texas Hold'em Poker Odds

We have already determined that you have nine outs. Now, there are 52 cards in a deck and two of them are in your hand, leaving 50. In addition, there are four cards exposed from the flop and turn, leaving 46 cards. Although your opponent is holding two others that we ignore because we have no idea what they are.

Our Online Poker – Texas Hold'em calculations are based only on the cards you can see. With nine outs and 46 unknown cards, there are nine cards that will allow you to win the hand and 37 cards (46 unseen cards – 9 winning cards) that will cause you to lose. So the odds of you getting one of the cards you need on the river are 37 to 9. Simply put, that's about 4:1. In other words, you're four times more likely to lose this pot than you are to win it.

First you need to calculate how many cards in the deck you cannot see:

Now the big question: Should you call the bet?

So we have about 4:1 odds of winning this hand. In order to decide whether or not to call our opponent's bet, we need to know how much money is in the pot. But that doesn't mean that if there's a lot of money in the pot you should go in. What you should be looking for is the ratio of money you could win compared to the size of your opponent's bet.

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Let's continue our example. Let's say there is $90 in the pot and your opponent bets $10. This creates a total of $100 in the middle of the table just waiting to be won. You need to match your opponent's bet of $10 to see the river card, as it will cost you $10 to see if that last card will be one of the nine outs you need to win.

Step 1: Find out how much you will typically win from your actual Poker Odds:

Step 2: Calculate how much money you could win and the odds you are getting:

“If you match your opponents’ bets and win, you will win $10 for every $1 you bet. Effectively, you will receive odds of 10:1.”

Step 3: Decide whether you want to call the bet

In this example by betting $10 your opponent has effectively given you odds of 10:1, when your actual chance of winning was 4:1. This is like a bookmaker giving you 10:1 odds on a horse that has a 4:1 chance of winning. So should you call this bet? Yes and you should do so quickly because the odds are offering you the opportunity to enjoy a big payout.

But what if I lose?

Even if you make that call, you can still lose. It happens. Remember, your odds were 4:1, meaning the poker gods said you will lose four times for every one time you win. That's why it's important to be offered at least the chance to win four times your bet, because in the long run you will break even. More importantly, if you are being offered the chance to win more than four times your bet, you will eventually make money.

In short:

So if this exact example happens 5 times during the game:

Translated and adapted from the original article: Poker for Dummies