Odds & Outs and the Pot Odds in poker

Introduction

In this article you will learn about one of the most important concepts for successful poker play, the so-called Odds & Outs and the Pot Odds. You will learn how to determine whether a bet or call tends to be profitable for you or a losing play. The relevant factors are:

• the probability to improve your hand,
• the pot size and
• the cost of continuing the hand with a bet, call or raise.

In other words:
Understanding Odds & Outs is essential for successful poker play.

Odds & Outs

The first two concepts in this article are the odds and the outs.

• Outs are all those cards which, in a given situation, improve your hand to a hand desired for that situation.
• Odds are the ratio of the “unknown cards in a given situation – minus the outs “ to “the outs”.

Take a look at the first example:

• You hold K♥ 3♥ .
• Four cards are on the board, J♥ A♥ 9♦ 7♠ .
• If you assume that in the given situation you need at least a flush for the best hand, you have a total of nine outs, namely the remaining heart cards.
• Since six cards have been revealed to you in this situation so far (namely your two cards and four cards on the board) a total of 46 unknown cards remain in the deck.
• Once you substract the number of outs from these 46 cards and put that number in relation to the outs, you have the odds. In this case 37:9 or, if you divide by 9, approximately 4:1.
• 4:1 means that you will miss the flush four times for an average of five attempts, and hit it once. This results in a 20% probability of hitting the flush with the next card.

Now take a look at the second example:

• You hold J♠ T♥
• Four cards are on the board, Q♣ K♥ 8♦ 2♠
• If you assume that in the given situation a straight is required for the best hand, you have eight outs, every A and every 9.
• Six cards have been revealed to you (2 hole cards plus four cards on the board). Consequently a total of 46 unknown cards is still in the deck.
• Similar to the first example, you can calculate your dds, in this case 38:8 or if you divide by 8 4.75:1.
• 4.75:1 Odds result in a approx. 17% probability of hitting the straight with the next card.

Pot Odds

The next important concept are the so-called Pot Odds.

Pot odds are the ratio of the size of the pot and the size of the current bet or call.

Take a look at (the bottom right) example 3.

• Only two players remain in the current situation, BB and MP2.
• The pot size is 10bb and BB bets 5bb.
• If you now want to determine the pot odds for MP2, first look at the pot size, which is 15 bb after the BB bet.
• To see the next card, MP2 would have to call at least 5bb, resulting in pot odds of 15:5, or 3:1 after division by 5.
• From the pot odds of 3:1 it can be deduced that MP2 has to win on average at least once in four cases, so MP2 needs a 25% shot.

Practical application

You might have noticed that odds & outs indicate a chance, while pot odds indicate how much chance there must be for a given pot size and bet size.

Accordingly, these two concepts can be linked in a useful way. The tendency is that if the pot odds are larger than the odds, this is an indicator for a profitable call.

Imagine the following situation:

• Hero holds a flush draw with nine outs against two opponents.
• The pot size on the turn is 10bb. The first opponent bets 5bb (half of the pot), the second opponent calls.
• Hero has Pot Odds of 20:5, or 4:1 after division by 5.
• The Odds are 37:9, or approx. 4:1 after division by 9.
• Since the pot odds and the odds are about the same size but Hero can potentially win way more than just the current pot in case of a flush, this is a situation where a call tends to be profitable for Hero.

Now imagine the following situation:

• Hero holds an Open Ended Straight Draw (OESD) and plays against one opponent.
• The pot is 10bb, and the opponent bets half the pot size on the turn, 5bb.
• The Pot Odds for Hero in this case are 15:5 or after division by 5 3:1.
• The odds are 38:8 or about 4.75:1.
• Since the Pot Odds are smaller than the Odds, this is an indicator that a call might not be profitable.

However, please be aware, that the Odds & Outs are an indicator only and that there are usually more aspects that need to be considered for a final decision. In the first situation these were the potential additional winnings in case of hitting the flush. However, if you don’t have any further information available, Odds & Outs are a very solid decision making tool that every poker player should be able to use.

Determine odds and outs in the game

As in life in general, there is nothing for free in poker. However, you don’t have to calculate odds in your head at the table. For typical situations, these odds are well known and can be written down in tables and charts. Some of the most important situations in which you want to know your odds are shown in the following table. Starting with the hand with the most outs try to follow the examples from the top left to the bottom right.

Typical situations for Odds and Outs

Situation	Outs	Odds Flop-Turn or Turn-River	Odds Flop-River
Flushdraw and OESD	15	≈ 2:1	≈ 1:1
Flushdraw and Pair	14	≈ 2.5:1	≈ 1:1
OESD and Pair	13	≈ 2.5:1	≈ 1:1
Flushdraw and Gutshot	12	≈ 3:1	≈ 1:1
Flushdraw	9	≈ 4:1	≈ 2:1
OESD	8	≈ 5:1	≈ 2:1
Gutshot and Pair	9	≈ 4:1	≈ 2:1
Pair to Two Pair or Trips	5	≈ 8:1	≈ 4:1
Gutshot	4	≈ 11:1	≈ 5:1
Pocket Pair to Set	2	≈ 22.5:1	≈ 11:1

If you memorize these nine situations, or put them on your desk as a chart, you’ll be able to determine your outs and odds very quickly during the game and find out if a bet or call tends to be profitable for you in or a losing play.

Summary and prospects

In this article you have learned about the concepts of Odds & Outs and Pot Odds. You now know what your outs are and how you determine the odds. You’ve also learned how to compare odds and pot odds to get a solid indicator of whether a bet or call tends to be profitable or in a given situation or is a losing play.

I wish you success in your game when using Odds & Outs.