Pot Odds' Advise: Call, Raise or Fold?

Winning a poker game requires the player to make a sound decision. A player needs to decide on calling, increasing the bet, or folding during a particular round. In making this decision, a player should never base it only on intuition to prevent having any regrets as soon as the flop turns up. One should also take into consideration the pot odds.

Pot odds are simply the relationship between the amount of the bet you are making or calling and the amount of the bets in the pot. For instance, there is a $20 pot and you have to bet $5 to play the round. In this example, you are getting a 4:1 pot odd, which simply says that the current pot is four times the amount you would have to call.

How should we put this into use? Well, knowing this certainly makes it easier for the player to decide when to play a hand. Generally, one should play a hand only when they have better pot odds than the chance of winning the hand. For instance, if there is only 25% of winning the hand, then you should only play when there is 4 times your bet or more in the pot.

Calculating the pot odds is also helpful in situations when you have a drawing hand. Having a drawing hand is being in a position where you currently have a weak hand with a possibility for you to make it strong. For instance you have an ace spade and a king spade. When the flop turns up, a four spade, a six spade and a jack diamond come out. In this situation, you have to determine the pot odds to be able to come up with a sound decision.

To get the pot odds, you first have to figure out all the possible outcomes that will give you a strong hand. In the situation above, you could either have a flush or a top pair. The next step is determining the out cards. These are the cards you need to end up with either the flush or the pair. In this case, the outs are four aces, four kings, and eight spade cards, or a total of 16 outs. To calculate the percentage of getting an out card in the next turn of the flop, multiply the total number of outs with two. Then add 1 to the product. So you'll have 33% chance of hitting on the turn.

This 33% chance of winning guides you on your next move. For instance, the bet is $50 and the pot is $450. In this case, you should call since you have more than 10% of winning the round. Remember that you should only play your hand when your pot odds are greater than your chances of winning.

In playing poker, sound decisions are made to win a round. And tools like pot odds are available to guide you in making a sound decision. So before making your next move, stop for a moment and think whether the odds are right or not. Do this and you'll surely take home a big pot.