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Learn How Not To Suck At Poker

• 31.06.2025 1:27 pm
• Helen
• 0 Comments

Learning the basic odds

In this part of your beginner's series on moves to use to win poker games, you will learn how you can avoid sucking at poker by learning as well as understanding the basic odds.

Whether you agree or disagree, it is obvious that Texas hold'em is indeed a game of odds. During the game, everything you do is driven by probability, statistics as well as odds. However, this is not meant to scare away the people, who are not so good at math, you really do not have to be a math geek to be able to succeed in poker. If players had to, then most of the people who have actually succeeded would have never stood a chance at it.

The strategy involved in the Texas hold'em might sound complex, but the grounds of the game are very basic. You only need to solve very simple math and equations.

You are only required to grasp the basics of the ideas you get from this article to understand how to succeed at poker.

How to figure your pot odds out

The term pot odds generally refer to the odds you are offered by the pot in order for you to call. This odd is calculated from the amount in the pot and the amount of cash you have to put up to stay in a particular hand. For instance:

Assuming you are at the flop heads up, the pot is worth $10 and one of your opponents places a bet of $5. This makes the opponents bet a part of the bet, so, this means that you have $15 for the taking for only $5. The ratio of these would be 15:5.

For easier understanding, the right hand side of the ratio equation should always be equal to 1. In the above ratio, you will have to divide the right side by itself to get 1.

Remember the rule of math; what you did on one side of a ratio equation must be done to the other side as well, so you also divide the left side with five to get 3. You end up with a completely new ratio of 3:1. For easier substitution, you can simply divide the left side with the number of the right side. You will still end up with the same ratio.

In this case the odds of the pot are 3:1

How to figure your equity out

Once you have your pot ratio sorted, you need to figure your equity out. Your equity is generally the chances you have of actually winning the pot as compared to that of your opponent.

To get your equity, you need to multiply your total outs by 2 on turn and 4 on flop. The number you get, is the percentage of the chances you have at winning a pot.

This is to say:

If by chance you have flush draw, this gives you nine outs on flop when you multiply nine by 4 you get 36%, this is the chance you have in this hand. This means you have 64% chance of not winning.

You also need to convert this percentage to ratios in order to coincide with the pot odds. The ratio is the chances you have of not winning against the chances you have of winning which gives you 64:36 with 100 being the points of percentage for the entire hand.

Remember, you need to simplify this ratio as much as possible. You need to use the shortcut of dividing both sides such that the number on the right is always 1. So, you need to divide both sides of the ratio by 36. When you do this, you will end up with a ration of 1.7: 1. This simply means that for every hand you make, you have 1.7 others you don't.

In other words, you simply need to figure out how many times the number on the right goes to the number on the left and you will have a ratio. You can even round it off to 2:1 in the above scenario and you will have a good enough figure to decide n whether or not to call.

How to compare your equity to your pot odds

You are probably wondering how you are supposed to decide on calling or not, well, all you have to do is compare the two numbers on the left sides of both ratios.

In case the number on the pots odds is larger than the number on the equity side, then you are safe to call, if it is on the low side, then it is unwise to call. The random odds statistics below will simplify the odds mathematics for your understanding.

• The probability of being dealt a pair like will have pot odds at 17:1 and equity odds at 5.9%.
• The probability of being dealt aces like will have pot odds at 221:1 and equity odds at 0.45$
• The probability of being dealt suited Ace King like will have the pot odds at 331.5:1 and the equity odds at 0.3$
• The probability of flopping a set with a pocket pair like | will have the pot odds at 8.51:1 and the equity odds at 11.76%
• The probability of flopping two pair without a pocket pair pre flop like | will have the pot odds at 48;1 and the equity odds at 2.02%
• The probability of making a flush at the river flopped 4 to a suit like | :10d will have a pot odds of 1.9:1 and the equity odds at 35%
• The probability of making an open ended straight by the river like |   will have the pot odds at 2.2:1 and the equity odds at 32%
• The probability of a full house or better by the river flopped like | will have the pot odds at 2:1 and the equity odds at 33%