Basic Pot Odds, how to explain to someone who doesn't agree?

[dblgutshot]

I am having a discussion with a friend about pot odds. It came up as I was saying, if the pot is laying me 15-1 on the river, and my hand is probably best 10% of the time I should definately call!

He agreed, but he says that 15:1 is not the odds you should be using. He argues that you must account for the money that YOU put in. If you remove that, then those are your true odds you should be using.

Now I understand that to be very very wrong! However I just cannot explain to him why this is not true. I tried to explain how the money is not yours once you put it in. Does anyone have a link to a good discussion of this? Or have a clear explaination?

[JSHamm]

Ask him if he lost the hand would he have the right to ask for his portion back? I'm sure he'd answer no...why? Because the money isn't his anymore /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[tpir90036]

Your friend is clearly wrong.

If we are talking about the price of calling someone down and taking into account the bets on multiple streets... that is one thing. Say you decide on the flop that you are calling all the bets to showdown. Sklansky calls this effective odds and talks about it in Theory of Poker. Maybe this is what your friend is trying to convey...

However, being on the end faced with a decision to call a bet to win the pot is not the same thing. We are looking at this one decision at this point in the hand...It's simple math: what we stand to win (the pot) vs. what we stand to lose (one more bet) compared to our estimated chances of winning. The money in the pot is no longer ours and is irrelevant...it does not affect the math involved with our river decision. It's simply pot odds vs. our chance of winning. This is also discussed in TOP. I do not know of a clearer way to present it.

[Guthrie]

Tell your friend you thought about it and he's right. Then break out the cards and take his money.