Pot Odds 101: What Every Poker Player Needs to Know

Poker is a beloved game all over the world. And all over the world, beginning players are gaining knowledge faster than every before!

This is thanks especially to the boom of Texas Hold’em, a game whose simplicity is equally appealing to newcomers and experts alike.

To really excel in the game of poker, though, the basics of strategy aren’t enough.

Last week we explored two essential, interrelated concepts to bring beginner play up to the next level: pot odds.

Today, we’ll take those concepts one step further and dig into implied pot odds.

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Why Are Implied Odds Important?

“Wait a minute…”

…you might find yourself saying. “I just learned all about pot odds! There was math and everything – it was complicated, but I learned it! Now you tell me there’s more?”

Fear not! The essential concepts of pot odds remain important and unchanged.

As a reminder, pot odds are the ratio between the size of the pot and the bet facing you.

Strong poker players can use them to determine what kinds of play are and are not profitable. Pot odds indicate the situations which playing, say, nut flush draw, is winning proposition, and when it’s a losing one.

Calculating pot odds is fairly simple. Let’s review:

Step 1: Calculate the final pot size if you were to call.

Step 2: Divide the size of the call by the size of the final pot.

Step 3: Multiply by 100 to get this value as a percentage.

Step 4: Determine if your hand has enough equity to call.

(Pro tip: this neat app over at our sister site, Wizard of Odds, can be useful here. Simply plug in hand values and see who comes out ahead.)

It’s a neat concept, and a very useful one. There’s only one problem with it:

Pot odds are based on the money in the pot at the time the bet is called. But what about subsequent bets?

Pot odds are well and good, but the hand doesn’t end when the next card comes. There’s usually more betting (the only exception would be when players are all-in), and this should be part of consideration as well.

This is where implied odds come in.

What are Implied Odds?

To put it simply, implied odds are the amount of money that you expect to win on subsequent bets if you hit one of your outs.

This idea, in combination with pot odds, is most commonly used to help you figure out if calling a bet with a draw is worth it.

If you expect to win more money from your opponent after you hit your draw, then you have good implied odds. But if you anticipate not being able to get any more money from your opponent on future streets, then you have little or no implied odds.

Unlike pot odds proper, it’s almost impossible to calculate implied odds with any exactitude. This is because there are too many variables in play – will an opponent call your all-in bet? What about a pot-sized bet? What about a 3/4 sized bet? One can’t know for sure ahead of time.

What you can do, though, is calculate the minimum you would need to win in future betting rounds to justify a game decision that would be otherwise a losing proposition.

Heads-Up Example

Let’s say, for example, that you hold A4 of hearts in a hand against one other player, who raised pre-flop and bet $5 after the flop. After the turn, the board holds: 37JQ, including two hearts. There is $40 in the pot. Your opponent, in first position, makes an aggressive bet of $50.

Let’s calculate the pot odds first (see above for how):

Step 1: $40 in the pot + $50 bet + your $50 call = $140

Step 2: 50/140 = .3571

Step 3: 35.71%

Step 4: 11 hearts remain in the deck, which means 11 cards give you your flush, while 35 will not… which means you have a 31% of making your hand.

If you played this hand 100 times, you would make the $50 call all 100 times, lose the pot 69 times, and win $90 (the $140 pot minus your $50 call) 31 times.

$50 call x 69 hands = $3,450 in losses
$90 in winnings x 31 hands = $2,790 in winnings

Conclusion: Because the losses are greater than the winnings in this situation, it makes no sense to call this bet. Your opponent’s aggressive bet has given you insufficient pot odds to call.

But wait! Implied odds suggest that there’s one more variable to consider. How much does your opponent have left in his or her stack?

Suppose your opponent only has $30 left after their $50 bet. They would almost always call a $30 bet on a $140 pot, even if you make your hand, because they are getting sufficient pot odds to do so… which changes our calculations.

Now, in the 69 losing hands, you still lose your $50 call for a total of $3,450 in losses. (You would fold to any bet if you don’t make your hand on the river.)

But… in the 31 losing hands, you can reasonably expect to win not $90, but $120. That means $3,720 in winnings!

Which means you can and should call the $50 bet!

This is only one example, but it shows the essential concept: when deciding how to proceed, especially on drawing hands, it’s important to consider not only pot odds but also subsequent rounds of betting.

Implied odds can very literally mean the difference between a winning session and a losing one, and keeping them in mind is one essential element that separates beginner players from more serious ones.