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.