A Clarification of Odds
29 December 2009There is a distinct way of calculating odds that is independent of any “investment” one has in the pot. I ran across a thread the other day on a prominent poker forum and a question was posed regarding pot odds and how we calculate them.
And as I read on I found out that a lot of people think of pot odds the wrong way. In fact, many people overcomplicate pot odds, and this can have a drastic effect on your betting strategies. So let’s go through pot odds calculations on the various streets to clarify how to do it correctly.
You have 9Ts. You’re in the big blind. One person raises to 4 big blinds (bb). Three people call and the action is on you. The pot contains 17bbs and it costs you 3bbs to play. Your odds are 3:17. It’s a pretty easy call here with a decent suited connector.
What a lot of people would do though, is see their odds as being 4:16. They would count the bb they already put in, and not count it as potential profit. In this example that doesn’t account for much as the odds are still good to call. But let’s look at the next street for further illustration.
The flop comes out J-Q-T rainbow. You have an open-ended straight draw, and you decide to check. There are 20bbs in the pot. The player behind you bets 10bbs, the pot. It is folded around to you. Your pot odds now are 10:30. Or 1:3 if you’re correctly calculating.
However, many online poker players will again look at their pot odds differently and incorrectly. They will assume that the 4bbs they already put in are not part of the odds to win. So instead of the pot being 10:30, they look at it as being 14:26. They add the 10 more they have to risk to the 4 they’ve already risked. In reality, the 4bbs already risked are considered a loss until they are won back. That’s quite a substantial change when you consider the odds of 1:3 compared to the falsely calculated odds of 1:1.8.
To show how this will affect your online poker strategy, you would most likely call if you had 1:3 odds to on an open ended straight draw with a pair. If you only calculated your odds to be 1:1.8, chances are you would fold. So it is imperative that you correctly calculate your odds in order to make informed decisions regarding the risk/reward factor of a given hand. I’d hate for you to lay down a hand that is expected to hit 1:3 of the time (perfect odds in this situation) when you incorrectly figured your odds as closer to 1:1.8 and a K or 8 comes on the turn, making your bad laydown even worse to your psyche.
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