Pot Odds in No Limit Texas Holdem

January 2, 2008

In Part One we covered some simple pot odds examples in a limit Hold’em game. In Part Two we’ll cover no limit examples, then expand this to a related topic, bet sizing.

First let’s revamp our example from Part One:

The game is 1/2 NL Hold’em. You hold AdQd and the board is 4d8sKd-2h. The pot is 60, and you are heads up against a player who has bet his last $25 on the turn, and you’re sure he has AsAc so that only a diamond wins this pot for you. Should you call? His bet makes the pot $85 and it costs you $25 to call. So your pot odds are 85-25, or 17-5, or 3.2-1. We already know that we have a 4.1-1 chance of making our flush, so in this case we should not call because our reward (3.2-1) is less than our chance of success (4.1-1).

In this example you’ll see that I set it up so that your opponent is all in on the turn. That ensures that there is no betting on the river, so you cannot possibly make more money than is already in the pot. In Part Three we’ll talk about Implied Odds – taking into account that you might make more money on future rounds when you make your hand.

We could take our chance of success and work the math backwards to give us perspective on the pot size. If our odds are 4.1-1, and our call will cost $25, the pot needs to have at least 4.1 X $25 = $102.50 before we are getting the right price to call.

Now when our opponent goes all in on the river, there is only one more card to come. Of course you or an opponent can be all in on the flop, so we need to expand our odds table to include the chance of making your hand with both the turn and the river to come:

Draw	Outs	Odds for turn	Odds for river	Odds for turn and river
4 card flush	9	4.2 - 1	4.1 - 1	1.9 - 1
Open ended straight draw	8	4.9 - 1	4.8 - 1	2.2 - 1
Two pair making a full house	4	10.8 - 1	10.5 - 1	5.1 - 1
Gutshot straight draw	4	10.8 - 1	10.5 - 1	5.1 - 1
Open ended straight flush draw	15	2.13 - 1	2.07 - 1	0.8 - 1

As you can see, with 15 outs you are actually more likely to make your draw than to miss it, so it is correct to get all your money in on the flop if you can. With 14 outs you are even odds to make your hand, and those lovely 2 outers… 10.9 – 1.

So now let’s turn this around and give you a made hand, and place your opponent on a draw. When the board contains a likely straight or flush draw you can now use your knowledge of pot odds to make a bet that your opponent would be wrong to call. Not that he sometimes won’t call anyway, and some of those times make his hand to beat you, but you can make it so that he makes a mistake when he does call.

You hold KcKs in middle position, raise to $8, and are called by the button and the BB (pot $25). The flop comes 8h7h2c. The SB checks, you make a $15 continuation bet, the button calls and the BB folds (pot $55). You’ve played with the guy on the button before and know that he will play any two suited cards and chase that flush draw all day. If he had AA he would have reraised preflop, and if he had a set he would have raised you after you bet the flop, so he must be on a heart draw. The turn is the 3s which does not make any draws, so you know you are still ahead. You know that his odds of making the flush on the river are 4.1-1. There is $55 in the pot, so how much should you bet to make a call of his incorrect. It’s important to remember to include your bet in the size of the pot when figuring his odds to call. Since your bet and his call are obviously going to be at 1-1 odds, the other 3.1 is coming from the $55 already in the pot. Take that $55 and divide by 3.1 and you get $17.74. So that means if you bet $18 his pot odds are (55+18) – 18, or 73-18, which is 4.06-1. So, by just a small margin, an $18 bet would give him less pot odds than his 4.1-1 chance of making the hand. In reality a bet of $20 or $25 would be perfect – it looks small enough for him to call with his draw, but he’s actually getting bad odds to call.

While you might have some time to think about the math playing live, your opponents aren’t going to like it if you pull out a pad of paper and a calculator. Similarly online you usually have 15 seconds or less to make your decision, so here are some easy bet sizes to remember:

If you bet:	Your opponent’s pot odds to call
1/4 of the pot	5-1
1/3 of the pot	4-1
1/2 of the pot	3-1
2/3 of the pot	2.5-1
The size of the pot	2-1

So, remember pot odds work both ways. When you are calling, think about the bet size in relation to the pot size and the chance of you have of making your hand. And when you are doing the betting, be careful to bet enough to make the drawing hands pay without getting the right pot odds.

Good luck!

Frez

Frez is Bonus Internet Poker’s writer on strategy and theory in most poker games. He has been playing poker for over 15 years between a mix of online and live games. If you would like advice or to have Frez look over a hand that you have question about you can email him here. Your questions will be posted on the site and/or monthly newsletter. frez @ bonusinternetpoker.com

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