What Everybody Ought to Know About Online Poker Odds

 

Figuring out your odds of winning is a matter of “counting your outs”. Any card that will give you the best hand is an out. Sometimes it’s easy to count your outs, especially when you’re drawing to the nuts, and sometimes it’s virtually impossible.

 

Whenever you have to make a decision in poker you are going to consider and take into calculations the poker odds. “What are the odds that my hand will improve?” “What are the odds that my opponents’ hands will improve?” and “What are the odds that after it has all been said and done that I will have the best hand or a hand strong enough to bluff with?”

 

It is important to know the Poker rules when you play. Without knowledge or appreciation of the poker odds you are not going to be a good poker player and you will quickly find yourself with no chips and ridiculed. The reason is, the key to be good in poker is knowing when to fold as opposed to sinking more chips into the middle. Without the proper understanding of poker odds you are going to continue playing when the correct action is too fold. Folding when you should bet isn’t a crime but playing when you shouldn’t is.

 

How to know what your odds are? Well its simple, figure your immediate pot odds, if your playing in an online casino its written somewhere, if its in live casino, you can either manually count your chips or ask the dealer, with this you will know how much your opponent bet. Your pot odds are “size-of-the-pot” to “amount-you-have-to-pay-to-call”.

 

Figuring out what your odds of winning is more difficult. There are only two extreme cases where you can be certain of your odds; When you’re drawing to the nuts, and when you’ve seen your opponent’s hole cards. All other cases include some degree of hand-reading and/or guessing.

 

There are a number of poker odds you need to be aware of when you play.

 

Outs

 

This is the number of remaining cards in the deck which are going to help you make your hand. If you have a straight draw and require an Ace to complete it then you only have four outs. Using the outs you can roughly work out what your odds are. Calculate the number of outs and multiply this by four to get your odds of hitting on the flop. You multiply the same number by two to get the odds of hitting on the turn.

 

Pot Odds

 

These are the odds which compare your chances of winning the hand to the size of the pot. They recommend whether or not you should fold. If you have a 30% chance of getting the card you need and you need to call $10 to a pot which is already $190 you should call. This is as your bet is only 5% of the pot. If the pot odds are close and there are still people to play behind you, you should think more about folding. You also need to be wary of playing with the second best hand which can be a very costly exercise.

 

Implied odds

 

Implied odds are the adjusted pot odds changed based on the future winnings you will get if you win the hand. These are the odds that consider how the other poker players at the table will react. For example, you have an open-ended straight draw and there are still three players left in the hand. You believe you only have a 15% chance of winning the pot if you go to the showdown and all three remaining players are pretty tight, so you may wish to try to bluff and in turn steal the pot then and there. What if there is a 20% chance they will fold when you bet. Now your chances of winning the hand are 35%. If the pot is smaller than 35% you shouldn’t call. The more players still in the hand increases any potential winnings as does the ability for you to disguise your hand so people won’t fold. Not only that but your opponents will probably bet big not counting on you to have anything. If you are drawing, you need to be wary that you are in fact drawing to the best hand. You don’t want to go to the showdown with the second best one.

 

It is said that in poker anything can happen especially bad beats – no matter how remote the poker odds are. This doesn’t mean you should ignore them. The odds are the odds because more often than not that are going to hold up.

 

 

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