Probabilidades do Pot

Simply put, the odds you get when factoring the money in the pot vs. the money of your next call or bet are known as the pot odds. Let’s look at a couple of examples so you will understand. Let’s say we have $200 in the pot already and you are looking at a flush draw (that is four cards to a flush) on the flop. You know that if you hit the flush, you will win the pot. A player in the hand bets $20, a small bet into that size pot, now what do you do? This is an easy one because the bet is $20 and the pot size is $200 so it is an easy call. In fact you might even want to raise. You are looking at a possible flush and it only costs you $20 to call. You are getting 10-1 on your money and the odds of making your flush are in the range of 3-1. Let’s say though that someone bet $100 into that $200 pot. Is it worth the call now? It depends. The pot odds are not going to be good enough for you to call that bet without more money going into the pot somewhere. Perhaps you know that other players will also call the bet. Then it becomes a good decision, but just calling one other bet when the pot size is $200 and the bet is $100 is not a good decision. Your pot odds are only 2-1 and the odds of you making the flush are higher than that. The basis of understanding pot odds is to call the bet when your odds of making your hand are lower than the odds the pot offers.

Sometimes playing the pot odds will not look like a good short-term decision, but many players base the call on long-term results. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a small pair, say 3’s after the flop and there is currently $500 in the pot. It is just you and two other players after the flop and one of them bets $20 and the other person calls. It is now to you and it only costs you $20 to see another card. There is very little doubt that right now your 3’s are no good, but for only $20 more you are getting 25-1 odds on your money and it is an easy call because the odds of you catching another three are better than 25-1. Now, most of the time you are not going to hit your set, so in the short-term you are going to lose money, but in the long-term the pot odds say that you must call. In the long-term you will make money by making this call. Sometimes professional players will make calls similar to this when it looks like they are throwing money away, but the pro player understands the pot odds associated with his decision.

What you want to remember with pot odds is that you don’t want to go chasing hands without proper odds. Too many times players go after those back door flushes and inside straight draws without the proper odds. Remember that the odds of hitting the backdoor flush are not very good and the odds of hitting the inside straight are even worse. You need extremely good odds to be chasing those types of hands. You need odds that offer you an advantage like what we looked at earlier with those pair of 3’s. Look at the pot odds the next time you are in a hand. Decide if the odds offer you long-term profitability and make your decision based on those odds.