Need recommendations on learing how to calculate odds...

[CWGriswold]

I am having trouble learning how to quickly calculate pot & hand odds. There seems to be a fair amount of calculator software out there. Can anyone recommend a good program or suggest any other way I can master this? Thanks.

[slickterp]

practice, practice, practice.

[Macedon]

There is an excellent texas hold em calculator on cardplayer.com. Plug in some hands and give it a try.

As for hand odds, you'll get a lot of recommendations on this sight about counting your outs and figuring your odds. Much of the information is confusing and difficult to remember when you are sitting at a table. For me personally, I use a handy formula for figuring if I have the right odds to call with certain draws.
Here it is:

When you are on a flush draw (4 to a flush on the flop) and you intend to see the hand to the river----going all-in, or calling your opponent's all-in bet---you multiply the bet in front of you by 3. You then check to see if the pot is offering you the same or more than the sum of your multiplication. If the pot is offering MORE than your sum, you CALL. If not, FOLD.

If you have not landed your flush and you have one card left to see (5th street), multiply the bet in front of you by 5.

So, if someone bets $4 and you have landed a flush-draw on the flop, multiply 4X3. If the pot is offering $12 or more, CALL!
If your opponent has bet $6 on 4th street and you are still waiting to land your flush, multiply $6 by 5. If the pot doesn't offer you $30, FOLD.

For a Str8t draw you must multiply the bet in front of you by 4 on the flop and 6 afterwards.

For a gut-shot Str8t, multiply by 6 and 11.

Now these numbers do not reflect implied odds and the like. They are all about Pot Equity and the percent chance to hit your hand. You can lower the number against weak opponents, but you must be strict with tight-aggressive opponents.

Just as a recap...
Flush Draw: 3/5
Str8t Draw: 4/6
Gut-sht Dr: 6/11

If you have any questions, ask away.....

[snowlarbear]

might i ask how you came about these formulas? just looking at general pot odd scenarios?

[Macedon]

Lots of books and articles.
And knowing the percent chance for every draw. That helps you figure out how much of the pot is yours---Pot Equity is the term.

Once you know what your chances are, you can figure out how much of a $ amount to call.

[slickterp]

i wouldn't use those formulas. for a $6 bet and a $30 pot that gives you 5-1 odds. since a flush draw is a 4.2-1 shot, you have odds, call. if the pot is $12 and the bet is $4, that's 3-1. flush draw 4.2-1, odds no good, fold. both scenarios your formulas are wrong.

[slickterp]

also:

flush ~4-1
open ended str8 ~5-1
gut shot ~11-1

[Dave H.]

I don't have SSH in front of me, but there is a page which discusses how to calculate odds and it's served me very well with a little practice.

Divide the number of cards unseen by the number of outs you have to make your hand. Subtract 1. There must be at least that many bets in the pot for a call.

Example: you have 2 hearts. Two more hearts fall on the flop. There are now 47 unseen cards. You have 9 outs to make your flush.

Divide 47 by 9 = 5.2
Subtract 1 = 4.2
There must be at least 4.2 bets in the pot for a single bet favorable call.

As others have said, you can memorize the "standard odds", but this method is a very easy one for me to use and it is accurate. In the example I used above, when I divided 47 by 9 and subtracted 1, I would have just said to myself: I need more than 4 bets in the pot. In other words, I wouldn't have worried about getting EXACTLY 5.2 when I divided 47 by 9.

Hope this helps.

[OrianasDaad]

I use a pocket calculator on my desk.

(Unseen - Outs)/Outs = odds to make your hand.
(Unseen/Outs) - 1 = odds to make your hand.

When deciding to call:
if ((Unseen-Outs)/Outs) * Bet > Pot size then I have odds to call.

Just follow the progression on the calculator, I only include the parantheses for correctness.

If you have 8 outs (on the flop), are playing .25/.50, and it's .25 to you, then the pot needs to have at least $1.22 in it to call.

((47-8)/8) * .25 = 1.219

[MycroftX]

Good article on cardplayer that might help you Griswold

pot odds made easy (http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=13913)

eum, not to put him/her down, but don't use Macedon's formula's...I dont know where those came from.

[ThaSaltCracka]

hand odds. On the flop, count how many outs you have, times that number by 4, that number is basically the rough percentage that you will hit your hand on either the turn or the river. If you are on the turn, count your outs and times by 2, that is your odds for hitting your hand on the river. So basically if you are on a flush draw on the flop, you are roughly going to hit it 35% of the time by the river.

[Macedon]

Slickterp,

OK, let's use your example. With a $6 bet and a $30 pot, you would have the right odds to call according to my post.
$6X5=$30...doesn't it?
And as far as I know, $4x5=$20, so you would not have the odds to call a 4 bet if the pot was offering $12.
So with both things, you are actually wrong.

Your second post is innacurate.
With a flush draw you have 1.9:1 chance of landing it by the river. You have a 4.1:1 chance of landing after the turn.
With a Str8t draw the odds are like this:
2.2:1 from the flop to the river.
4.75:1 from the turn to the river.

Gut-shot:
5.1:1 from the flop to the river.
10.5:1 from the turn to the river.

[Macedon]

Dave,

you are right about your formula. Unfortunately, that formula only applies to LIMIT poker. With No-limit poker, your mind would explode trying to figure out the odds using that formula.

But you are right in applying that math for the limit game.

[Macedon]

MycroftX,

pick up THE INTELLIGENT GUIDE TO TEXAS HOLD EM POKER.
Turn to page 52.

Not my formula.....his.

[slickterp]

did read your post slightly wrong. however, i did say to fold the $4 bet into a $12 pot, so i'm right. also, i believe that 4.1-1 is ~ 4-1, 4.75-1 is ~5-1 and 10.5-1 is ~11-1.
also, w/ drawing hand odds, i always use the odds i will hit my hand on the next card (not 2 cards) since most of the time you wouldn't chase your draw for twice and would fold the turn if you don't hit.

[smoore]

TheSaltCracka has got this one spot on.

flop odds = outs*4
turn odds = outs*2

This is a super easy system that is surprisingly close to the actual odds and is what I use. You should definitely understand the concepts in SSH about finding hidden outs to get the most from pot odds.

To count the pot, the easiest way for me is to simply multiply number of players by however much the bet was. Keep that number in your head and then add the subsequent rounds to it.

You don't need to be exact in your calculations, you need to be close.

edit: it's *2 per card to come... so if you're gone unimproved on the turn, only multiply by two.

Edit again: hm... reading what I wrote, I'm doing uneccesary math by figuring out how much money is in the pot instead of concentrating on how many BETS are there... I can save mental energy now!

[Macedon]

You said in both scenarios I was wrong.
In my original post I said not to call that $4 bet if the pot has less than $20, but you made it sound like I did.

Sometimes you do consider your odds to the river.
For example:
1. If your opponent is short-stacked and can not make pot-seized bets after the flop.
2. You are all-in
3. Your opponent goes all-in

You wouldn't/shouldn't consider your odds to be 4:1 on the flop. They are much better than that with a flush draw.

Good night....we will continue this tomorrow if you wish.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
TheSaltCracka has got this one spot on.

flop odds = outs*4
turn odds = outs*2

This is a super easy system that is surprisingly close to the actual odds and is what I use. You should definitely understand the concepts in SSH about finding hidden outs to get the most from pot odds.

[/ QUOTE ] I have to be honest with you, someone posted that on here one time and I said to myself, "it can't be that simple" but it is. The strangest thing is the percentage is absurdly close to, only off by like 1-2%, which is irrelevant for what most poker players need to know.

[CWGriswold]

Thank you everyone, the responses are fantastic. Now I'll just have to sit down with a calculator and work the numbers until it all makes sense...then apply it.

[AngryCola]

I don't think the forumlas are wrong exactly, but they are fairly pointless to me.

Why bother remembering all those numbers when it's so easy to calculate the odds by the number of bets/money in the pot. It's not that hard guys.

EDIT - Even if you do use a system like this, the one TSC mentioned is much easier to remember.

[Big Country]

It is this simple mainly because your two hole cards out of the deck leaves 50 cards, and each card in a 50 card deck has a 2 percent chance of showing. Thus, each out has a 2 percent chance of showing with each board card. Technically after the flop there are 4 unseen cards, but the difference in the math nedded is so minute that it is easier to consider each card 2% chance vs. the 2.13% chance that 1/47 really is

[AKQJ10]

FWIW i usually find myself rounding the 47 (or 46 on the turn) unseen cards to 45 or 48.

6 effective outs: probability roughly 6/48 or 1/8, you need about 7 to 1 odds.

5 effective outs: 5/45 or 1/9, you need 8 to 1.

4 effective outs: 4/48 or 1/12, you need 11 to 1.

3 effective outs: 3/45 or 1/15, you need 14 to 1

Note that most of the borderline draws, at least in low limits, fall in this neighborhood. I leave out strong draws like four-flushes and open-ended straights because at low limits they're almost always worth drawing to. But your more marginal draws are things like:

Two overcards -- starts with 6 outs but top pair is likely to not hold up, so discount to between 3 and 5.

Middle or bottom pair -- starts with 5 outs to two pair or trips, these hands hold up more often than just top pair so discount to 3 or 4.

Gutshot -- 4 outs, if to the nuts then there you go, 4 effective outs. If the gutshot isn't to the nuts then a straight is still a durable hand, so discount to 3 or 3.5.


(See SSH and this this recent thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1344118&page=2&view=colla psed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1&vc=1) for much more about discounting outs. This is perhaps THE most important topic in SSH.)

[Francis]

I won't debate the right outs, but as far as learning odds, I'd do the following

- select the odds for the most common situations (I made some cards based on ITH's odds chart, but I've seen some good ones on SSH threads around here too)
- put together flash cards for each situation, with the answer covered by your thumb.
- Now drill daily for 10 - 15 minutes, and within a week or so, you'll have 95% of all the situtions you'll ever need.

This is what I did when I was learning Blackjack deviation tables, and it works as well as it did when I was in 3rd grade learning multiplacaton tables... /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

good luck!
Francis