THE ODDS THAT YOUR TWO HOLE CARDS WILL BE:

AA……..220-1 (those pocket bullets are rare)
Any pair……..16-1
AK suited…….331-1
AK off suit…..110-1
Any 2 suited and connected…..26-1

TEXAS HOLDEM ODDS FOR THE FLOP

You Hold: Two unpaired cards.. like AK
you will flop an A OR a K: 32% of the time

You Hold: Any Pair
you will flop two pair: 16% of the time
you will flop three of a kind: 11%
you will flop a full house: 1%
you will flop four of a kind: 0.02%

You Hold: Any Two Suited
you will FLOP four to a flush: 11%

TEXAS HOLDEM ODDS for:

Making a flush with your four flush on the turn OR the river: ……….37%
Making a flush with your four flush on the river: ………………………19%
Making a straight on turn/river with four to an open ended straight: 31.5%
Making a straight with four to an open ended straight on the river: 17%
Making an inside straight draw on the turn or river: ………………….16.5%
Making an inside straight draw on the river: …………………………..9%

MORE TEXAS HOLDEM ODDS

Any pair against a lower pair (Example KK against QQ): 4-1 favorite

Chances of winning with AA against
1 random hand……..88%
2 random hands…….76%
6 random hands…….44%
9 random hands…….34%

In the last post I explained how to calculate Pot Odds. In this post I’ll explain how to calculate Hand Odds and how to use that in conjuction with Pot Odds.

Hand Odds is simply the odds you will make a winning five card poker hand. For example, one of the most common drawing hands is a flush draw. If you have two hearts in your hand and there are two hearts on the board, then the odds of making your flush will be about will be about 2:1. This means you will hit your flush one out of every 3 times that you chase. It also means you will lose two out of three times, yet many players get really upset when they miss a flush draw. Perhaps they should understand the odds better.

In order to calculate your Hand Odds, you need to know the number of outs you have. Once you know the outs, it is easy to calculate Hand Odds

1. Count the number of cards that will make a winning hand.
2. On the flop, multiply your outs by 4 then add 1.
3. On the turn, multiply your outs by 2 then add 1.

Example:
You are holding: A(h) J(h)
The flop comes: K(h) 7(d) 2(h)

In this situation, you may not have the best hand. It is safe to assume that if any heart comes up you will win with a flush. It is probably also safe (provided the pot has not been bet and raised before getting to you) that if any Ace comes up you will win with top pair. Outs = 12 (9 Hearts, 3 Aces)

This means on the flop you will have a 49% chance of winning (12 outs X 4 = 48 + 1 = 49%) this hand. If the Pot Odds are correct, you should not only call, but maybe even raise.

On the turn you will have a 25% chance of winning (12 outs X 2 = 24 + 1 = 25%) this hand. The proper play here is to chase only if the pot has 3 x your bet/call. Of course you should also play if you have been betting all the way and feel you can steal the pot by betting on the end (which is how I play, I like to play the players not the odds).

Now that you understand how to calculate Hand Odds, you must use them with Pot Odds (see my previous post). That is the purpose of calculating all this. If you play the odds, you should win in the long run.

Thanks to Steve Larson for writing this article

In order to be successful in poker in the long run, knowing your mathematical odds is very important.

Mind you though, you shouldn’t base your decisions solely on these odds. These percentages are there to give you a starting point when you evaluate your hand and measure it up to your opponents’ possible hands.

You probably know too that good poker players play their opponents and not their cards. That is what you should try to achieve. In some situations however (like at micro limit FL Holdem tables) playing the player is just not possible. You won’t be able to scare anyone, and the limits are so small that almost everyone is out to see each and every hand all the way to showdown.

The law of the blinds says, that the smaller the blinds are in relation to future bets, the tighter one should play. In this case though, the size of the future bets is so limited that the blinds are actually going to be pretty big when compared to them. This is what justifies the loose play.

Under such circumstances, knowing how to use pot odds and the odds you get for your hand in making a decision, can be the difference between winning or being caught up in the fray and breaking even.  

Right before showdown, with all the cards on the table, the decision is not so much a mathematical one. What you need to do in that situation is to put your opponent on a hand or a range of hands, and see how many of those your hand could actually beat. If all you can beat is a bluff, the decision is a no-brainer. Again, reads that you make on your opponent and the way you exploit your table image might always contradict your mathematical odds, and by golly, often these calls based on experience and skill are indeed the voices to follow. 

With cards to come, calculating odds is slightly more complicated though. Let’s suppose you have an open ended straight on the river, and you’re facing a $10 bet on a $50 pot. Should you call or should you fold? That is the proverbial question here. If we look at things from a strictly mathematical perspective, you need to check your pot odds first. You have to pay $10 to win $50, which means you get 5-1 odds. If you need to call like $35 to get a shot at a $184 pot, simply divide 184 with 35 and you get your odds. Back to our example though: the pot odds are 5-1.

Next thing you need to cover are the odds of you making your straight. To make it, you need one of 8 cards from the deck, you have an 8-outer. Subtract 5 cards from the 2 card deck, (52-5= 47) because those are already in your possession or on the board. Subtract the 8 outs you have from the 47 remaining cards (47-8= 39), and you get the number of cards that do not help you. The odds against you making your hand are: 39-8. (8 cards help you, 39 don’t). Reduce that by dividing with 8 and you get 4.875-1. These odds are better than the 5-1 odds you get on the pot, so you should indeed call. This example shows the importance of outs excellently. If you had a gutshot straight instead of the open ended one, you’d have but 4 outs, and that would make your odds 43-4, which is 10.75-1, which means you should definitely not call. 

While this looks pretty simple, bear one thing in mind: this calculus is only valid for your turn card. You may or may not make your straight on the turn though, and you’ll get another chance to complete your hand on the river. For odds on that, you need to estimate the money it’ll cost you to see the river card, which means this is no longer an exact science. These are called effective odds, and you can approximate them by adding up your odds on the turn, and the estimated ones on the river.

Implied odds are even more abstract, because they take into account something that is not mathematically measurable: the possible return in case you do make your hand. 

Keep your mathematical odds in check all the time, even if you know you’re not going to make your decisions based on them. They do offer you a small lead as to what you need to do, and you should never pass on any edge no matter how insignificant it is.

In that respect, do not forget to sign up for rakeback too if you play online poker. A good rakeback deal is not a small edge at all (see the 27% Full Tilt rakeback), so you definitely shouldn’t skip it.

A very important part of winning poker is to knowing Pot Odds. Pot Odds are used to calculate whether you should chase while playing poker.

Calculating Pot Odds is one of the simplest mathematical equations in poker. Pot odds are really just the ratio of the amount of money in the pot compared to the amount of money you need to put into the pot to continue to play in the hand.

For example, if the pot has $100.00 in it already and you have to put in $20 to call a bet, then the pot offers 5:1.

To calculate Pot Odds all you have to do is take the amount of money in the pot and divide it by the amount of money that you must put into the pot.

Here is the formula: 

amount in pot / amount of your call or raise = Pot Odds

Pot Odds are pretty useless when you try to use them by themselves. You must be able to use Pot Odds along with Hand Odds to know when to call a hand and when not to.

In an upcoming post I’ll go into how to calculate Hand Odds.