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Before proceeding with this article you have to read „Outs for Dummies“, „Probabilities for Dummies“and „Pot Odds for Dummies“ first. Please skip back, if you haven’t read them yet.

Good call, bad call

The pot odds are the ratio of the wager and the pot. The odds are the ratio of win and loss. If the wager is small compared to the potential winnings, your chance of winning can also be small.

A player has to pay 10 to win 100. This ratio is very good; the pot odds are 10:1. That means that his chance of winning can be pretty small, exactly 10:1. 91 % of the time he looses his small wager of 10, but he wins nice 100 in the other 9 %. The payment of 100 is so high compared to the wager that his odds don’t have to be very high.

Vice versa: A player has to pay 100 to win 10. This ratio is rather bad and he must be damn sure to win (exactly 91 %).

This is the whole secret: If the odds are better than the pot odds, it’s a good bet.

Odds and pot odds in praxis

Supposing, you have a straight draw on the flop with 8 outs. There are 100 in the pot and your opponent is betting 100. What are you doing with this draw?
First of all, you calculate the pot odds which are 2:1 (200:100).
Then you take a look at the probability of hitting the straight on the turn. 8 x 2 = 16. 84/16 = 5,25. The odds of hitting one of the 8 outs are about 5:1.

Now you simply have to connect the pot odds with the odds. The pot odds are 2:1, while the odds are 5:1. Because of the fact that 5 is bigger than 2, a call would be a bad investment. Let’s take a look why:
There are 100 in the pot, the opponent is betting 100 and you have to call 100 to see the turn.
16 % of the time you hit the straight and win 200.
84 % of the time you miss and loose 100.
This brings us to the following calculation: 0,16 x 200 + 0,84 x (-100) = – 52. Because of the fact that the result is negative, it would be a bad call which costs a lot of money in the long run.
How many outs do you need to call those 100 on the flop?
Supposing, you now have 12 outs, what gives you about 3:1 odds (12 x 2 = 24, 76/24 = 3).
25 % of the time you hit and win 200.
75 % of the time you miss and loose 100.
0,25 x 200 + 0,75 x (- 100) = – 25

The result is still negative and a call would be bad.

Supposing, you have 17 outs which equal 2:1 in odds.
33 % of the time you hit and 66 % of the time you miss:
0,33 x 200 + 0,66 x (-100) = 0
At this point the so-called break even point is reached. If the odds equal exactly the pot odds (2:1 in this case) the expected value of a call is 0 and it doesn’t matter if you call or fold.

Now you have a flush draw with one over card giving you 12 outs. The player now moves all-in with 1000 chips. There are 500 in the pot. Do you call or fold?

With 12 outs, the odds are about 1:1 (12 x 4 = 48 or almost 50 %):
0,5 x 1500 + 0,5 x (-1000) = 250
That means that you earn an average of 250 with a call, irrespective of the result. (Again, you have to think in the long term!)

The word „pot odds” gives a headache to some players. Most of them recall hearing that they’re important, may read an article, don’t understand it immediately and eventually give up.

Risk and reward – that’s all
If you’re talking about stakes it’s all about risk/wager and reward/win. Poker is a game that lives of stakes. In order to become a successful player you only have to stake cleverly and to have positive expectation. If you invest 10 euros in a pot, you expect to get more back than that. Otherwise this stake makes no sense. Every time you should consider what you have to risk and what you could possibly win (by the way not only at the poker table…).

Risk and reward at the table
Your goal in poker is to win the pot. This pot consists of bets. Just imagine some situations during a hand. Your opponent bets on the river and you consider either to call or to fold. Or you raise a bet on the turn or you call a raise on the flop.
In all those situations you’re investing chips. And why are you investing chips? Exactly! To win the pot. The chips you invest are the risk, your wager and the pot you want to win is the reward.
That’s it.

The feared pot odds
Invested chips = risk and pot = reward. Doesn’t it sound easy? Pot odds are found on this risk/reward ratio. It’s nothing more than that.

If you risk 100 euros to win 100 euros, the ratio is 1:1
If you risk 500 euros to win 100 euros, the ratio is 5:1
Vice versa: if you risk 100 euros to win 500 euros the ratio is 5:1, just reversed.
Pot Odds are exactly like this ratio. What do I have to risk to win what?

Pot odds in praxis
There are 500 in the pot and your opponent bets 500. You contemplate a call. What are the pot odds? There are already 500 in the pot and your opponent puts another 500 in it. You can’t win just 500, but 500 + 500 = 1000. Your opponent’s bet is also part of your potential winnings.

In order to call his bet you have to stake 500. This amount is your risk, the 1000 your reward. The ratio is 1000 / 500, or short 2:1. Thus the pot odds are 2:1.
That’s it.

Supposing you’re sitting on the button and everybody is folding to you. The blinds are 10/20 and you think about stealing the blinds. Your potential gain is 10 + 20 (both blinds) and you risk a single raise of about 60. The pot odds for this attempt are 30:60, or 1:2.

Pot odds are absolutely essential. But there’s another important part of the game called “the odds”. You won’t succeed by knowing only the pot odds. You also have to consider your odds to play poker successfully.

If you have read the pot odds for dummies article properly you’re now able to deal with pot odds. But they are useless if you don’t know your chances of winning, the so-called odds.

General probabilities

Everybody knows statements like: „with a likelihood of 80 %…“, or „I win 80 % of the time with my aces against your garbage hand“. Especially in poker this probabilities are very important. A player who moves all-in on the flop with a top pair and gets called by a flush draw has a 66 % chance of winning. The other 34 % of the time the player with the flush draw wins.

Percentages are one possibility to express probabilities. But at the poker table, there’s a better way. 50 % means 1:1. The sum of 1 and 1 is 2. If you play this 50 % situation 2 times, then theoretically case 1 occurs 1 time and case 2 occurs also 1 time.

Supposing, you flip a coin. There are two possible outcomes: heads or tails. Both are equally likely, thus there’s a 50 % chance of case 1 and a 50 % chance of case 2. It’s -as you know- 50:50, or short 1:1. This 1:1 means that if you flip the coin 10 000 times, both cases theoretically occur equally often (5 000 and 5 000).

Player A has flopped a set (= three of a kind) and player B calls his all-in with an open-ended straight draw. Player A has a chance of 75 % and B has a chance of 25 %. Expressed in odds it’s 75:25 or short 3:1.

The odds of 3:1 tell us that A wins three times and B one time out of four times. This is the whole mystery about odds.

Player A has a pair of aces and B a pair of eights. They moved all-in before the flop. The aces are an 80 % favourite against 88, or expressed in odds 4:1 (= 80/20). If the dealer would show five boards respectively, the aces would win four times and lose one time (as hard as it is…).
If you’re new to pre-flop chances, e.g. when AK performs against 77 or A2 against KJ, please read this article.

From % to odds

As already mentioned, when playing poker, the expression “in odds” has to be preferred. However, some of the chances are expressed in percentages because there’s a simple formula („2 and 4 rule“) to calculate them. But in order to handle decisions at the poker table you need to know the odds, not the percentages.

It’s pretty easy. You just have to divide the larger number by the smaller number:

50 % chance means 50 % / 50 % = 1:1
75 % chance: 75 % / 25 % = 3:1
10 % chance: 90 % / 10 % = 9:1
66 % chance: 66 % / 33 % = 2:1
It’s as simple as that and we have our odds.

If there are more than two players involved you calculate the odds like this:

Player A: 50 %, player B: 25 %, player C: 25 %, thus the odds are 1:1 (50/ (25 + 25))
That means that player A wins every second time.
Player B’s odds are (50 + 25) / 25 = 3:1, he only wins every fourth time.

A card that gives you the better hand is called „out“. If you know how many outs you have, you can estimate the odds to win and decide how to proceed with your hand. You only need two small tools:

The deck of cards
Such a deck consists of 52 cards. You only know 7 of those 52 cards (the two hole and the five community cards on the board). You know 5 of those 52 cards on the flop, on the turn 6 and on the river 7.

The deck is divided into four suits (spades, diamonds, clubs and hearts) which add up to four times 13 cards. There are four cards of each kind, for instance four aces, four tens, four fours etc.

In order to find out the amount of outs, you need to know how many of those cards would give you the best hand. If you have AK and you think you’ll win if an ace or king appears on the turn or river then you have got six outs. (Three from the four remaining aces plus three from the four remaining kings.)

If you have 44 and there’s no four on the flop you need another 4 to win. You already have two fours thus there are two fours still left in the deck. Therefore, you have two outs.

Now you have 98 and the flop is 76A. How many outs do you have? Every ten gives you a straight as well as every five. There are four cards each left in the deck, giving you 8 outs.

If you have suited hole cards like 87 of diamonds and there are two of these suits in the flop, then you have a so-called flush draw. There are 13 cards of one suit, the player already has four of them: 13 – 4 = 9. 9 cards give you the flush thus you have 9 outs.

This isn’t that difficult, is it? Just remember how a card deck looks like and then count the cards that would improve your hand significantly.

The chance of winning

If you know your outs, you also know the likelihood of hitting one of those outs. Of course it’s more likely to hit 15 outs than just 2.

There’s an easy way to find out your chances of winning, the so-called „2 and 4 rule“:

You take the amount of your outs and multiply them by 2 to find out the percentage to hit one of your outs with the next card.
For instance, you have 9 outs on the turn and you want to know how likely it is to make your hand on the river. 9 x 2 = 18 %. That means that you hit your outs 18 % of the time and miss 82 % of the time.
With 4 outs there’s an 8 % chance, with 15 outs, 30 %, and so on.

This rule is only true if there’s one card to come. Supposing, you’re on the turn with 9 outs, you have an 18 % chance of improving. Or if you’re on the flop with 9 outs, you hit one of your outs on the turn (!) 18 % of the time.

But if you’re sitting on the flop and there are two cards to come you can hit your outs twice (on the turn and the river). Then the calculation changes and you have to multiply your outs by four (completing the 2 and 4 rule).

Supposing your opponent is moving all-in on the flop and you’re on a draw. You have to know the amount of outs and the chance of winning. If you want to know your chance of winning from the flop to the river you have to multiply your outs by 4 (instead of 2).

If you have a flush draw on the flop and want to know the likelihood of being ahead on the river, you take your 9 outs and multiply them by 4, giving you a 36 % chance of winning.

Supposing you opponent puts you all-in on the flop, making sure that you see both the turn and the river card and you have an inside straight draw plus one over card, giving you 7 outs. 7 x 4 = 28 %.

To sum it up:
Chance of winning with the next card:
Outs x 2
Chance of winning with the next two cards:
Outs x 4

In Hold’em you only hit the flop only every third time (= 33 %) and only rarely good draws like flush- and straight draws. The fact, that you only hit every third flop is very important to play successful poker. The reason is that your opponent also misses the flop most of the time and the hand that was best before the flop, is usually still in the lead after the flop.
A player who raised before the flop is recommended to bet often after the flop. Such a bet is called a continuation bet, which is a continued wager and shows -if done properly- a good profit over the long run.

To succeed with a continuation bet if you missed the flop, there are some conditions:

1. The number of opponents should be small
The more opponents there are the greater is the chance that somebody hits a piece of the flop. A single bet won’t get them to lay their hands down. There are lots of players who raise with AQ in middle position before the flop, get four calls and make a continuation bet with only an ace high after missing the flop. This bet has almost no chance to succeed and you’re wasting your money.

2. The texture of the flop must be good
This means that the flop should have no or unlikely draws and shouldn’t show „danger cards“. If this flop is unlikely to have helped your opponent, the texture is good. If you have TT, raising and get one call in late position and the flop is AKQ then the texture is very bad because it’s highly likely that your opponent hit this flop. If you hold AK on a 227 flop then the texture is very good and even if you have only an ace high, you should still have the best hand. Also, if there are possible draws out there like KQ8 or TJ3 with two cards of one suit, the likelihood that your opponents hit some kind of draw are high and your continuation bet has little chance of success.

3. Your opponents
If you have a very loose opponent who keeps calling and calling every time, it makes no sense to make a continuation bet because you will get called. If your opponent is very tight and folds a lot, he’s the perfect victim to continue betting on the flop. Most of the time, he will just fold, even with good hands.

Of course, all of those three points should be considered altogether. But if there’s one bad factor (for instance, plenty of opponents, or a very bad flop) you shouldn’t make a continuation bet and save the chips.

The size of the continuation bet should be about half of the pot. If there are 100 in chips in the pot, you should bet about 50. If you do so, you give yourself very good pot odds, so that you only have to win every third pot to make a nice profit.

What if you hit the flop? Then your continuation bet isn’t a bluff or a semi-bluff but a value bet and you make profit if called. In most cases you should also make a half-pot-sized bluff. If you do so, your opponents can’t figure out whether you hit the flop or not. If you make bigger value bets than continuation bets as a bluff, clever opponents will figure out what you’re doing and you won’t succeed. Then you would show a so called „betting pattern“and you would be easy to read.

The biggest beginner mistake is to play too many hands. Every Ace, no matter if A2 or A5, all suited hands, no matter if 85 or 42, every pocketpair like 55, 22 and every hand with pictures such as QJ and KJ. The beginner wrongly thinks that he has to play them.
But all those cards cause many difficulties. Small aces like A6 are dominated by higher aces like AJ and A9 (dominated means that the kicker besides the ace is better) and often cost plenty of chips. Suited hands are very overrated! In less than 1 % of the time you flop a flush and 12 % of the time you hit a flush draw. That means that your suited hand is only playable one time out of ten. The rest of the time you have to fold.
Small pairs only hit the set (= three of a kind) one time out of eight. Without improvement, they have almost no chance to win. The so-called picture-hands look good but can easily be dominated. If QJ hits the jack on the flop, it loses against KJ and AJ. If you hit the king with KJ, then KQ and AK dominate you clearly. In No Limit Hold’em you often lose big in those cases.
A good player must learn to choose his starting hands selectively! Suited hands and cards with aces or pictures look seductive but they are dangerous! If you play only good starting hands and strictly fold your bad ones, you’re called „tight“. And that’s exactly the way to successful poker.

A very important factor is the position. Bad players don’t care whether they’re sitting on the button or under the gun (= first to act). This is a huge mistake which costs plenty of money. If you have to act first before the flop you don’t know anything about your opponents. It could be that there are some players behind with premium hands and wish to raise big. If you want to play from the early position, you need a much stronger hand than in the late position.
If you’re not familiar with the positions, please read this article first.

The action in front of you is also very important. If you’re on the button and see five folds in front of you, you can play with many hands. But if you see a raise in the early and a re-raise in the middle position, then you need an extremely strong hand to play.

Let’s take a look at the playable hands if nobody entered the pot and there’s no action in front of you (if there’s one caller, it doesn’t matter and you can call it „no action“):

In the early position, you can raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AK and AQs (the small s behind AQ means suited. AQo would mean off suit and isn’t a hand to play in this situation). A standard raise before the flop is three times the big blind. If the blinds are 30/60, you should raise to 180 (putting exactly 180 into the middle).
You can also call with the following hands: 99, 88, 77, 66, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ. All the weaker hands like 55, QJ, A8, etc. aren’t playable in the early position and you should fold them.

If everybody folded (or one player called) and you’re in the middle position you should raise with the above-mentioned hands (AA, TT, 66, AJ, KJ) and call with 55, 44, QJ and JT.

If you’re in the late position and everybody folded, you can raise with all the above-mentioned hands and additionally call with the following: „suited connectors“(like 76s, 43s), KT, QT, 33 and 22.

You see that there are raising hands in the late position that were folded in the early position. This is the value of the „positions“.

If you’re playing online and with a lot of weak players, you’ll rarely find yourself in the late position and everybody folding. Usually, you’ll see some callers in front of you and you have to change your strategy. AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AK and AQ are raising hands if there were only limper (= caller) ahead of you. You should also call with 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22, AJ, AT, A9, and every suited ace (such as A4s). You can also call with some connectors (like 87, 65, no matter if suited or not) and hope to hit a straight or flush.

If you’re in the middle or late position and see a raise in front of you, you need a very strong hand. The raiser signalizes strength but you need even more strength to play (Sklansky’s Gap Concept). AA, KK and QQ should be raised. You can only call with JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, AK and AQ. All other hands aren’t playable and should be folded. Notice that this is a great danger to make big mistakes. If you play more hands than the above-mentioned ones, you are in deep trouble. If your opponent raises with AQ, you’re calling with AT and hit your ace, you’re likely to lose plenty of chips.

There are also situations when you sit on the button and see a raise and a re-raise in front of you. You have to re-raise here with AA and KK, but only call with QQ. All other hands are too weak. One player shows strength and another shows even more strength. Just don’t mess around with AK, JJ and other „strong“ hands.

This is a short overview of how to play in various situations. If you’re following the instructions, I’m sure you lose less and win more. Especially, you can avoid big mistakes and tough decisions after the flop.

Watching beginners play is often very painful. You can’t even count the mistakes they’re making and there are plenty of leaks in their game. Fortunately, most of them make common beginners’ mistakes. And here they are:

1. He’s playing too many hands.
Beginners are playing too loosely. Of course, there are some players who are afraid of playing hands at all because they want to avoid making mistakes and looking like a fool. Those players should search for another game. Most of the beginners don’t care about starting hand requirements and play almost every hand that looks good to them.
By selecting the right hands before the flop, the decisions become quite simple, especially after the flop. Either you hit or not. Situations in which you’re not sure if your hand is good or if it isn’t are rare. Supposing, you’re playing AK and hit the ace on the flop. For sure, you probably have the best hand and should defend it. And if you play AK, miss the flop completely and someone bets out, you can be sure you’re beaten. The big problem with playing hands that are too weak is that the decisions after the flop become very tough. For example you think A4 is a playable hand and call a raise before the flop. The flop is A8T and you might be ahead against KK, JJ KQ or something like that but you might be far behind against an ace with a better kicker like AJ or A9. If your opponent bets, you’re in a tough situation. You can avoid this ugly situation by playing quality hands.

2. He’s playing too passively
All the great players out there have something in common: They’re playing aggressively – raising or folding, but do rarely call bets and raises. If you raise, there are two ways to win a hand. Either your opponent folds or your opponent calls, but you might get a better hand with the next cards. If you’re playing your good hands exactly like your weak hands, you are hard to read and your opponents can’t figure out if you got a good or just a junk hand.
Beginners call too often and don’t even consider raising with drawing or even recognize good made hands. Firstly, they’re often paying a wrong price to see a showdown or the next cards. Secondly, they don’t extract much value out of their made hands.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should raise with every hand you play and in every situation after the flop. This would cost you even more chips. But you should definitely learn to fold and raise. A call should be your last option. You have to pick up your spots to raise. This is a question of experience and knowledge.

3. He doesn’t care about pot odds
Pot odds are very important! If you want to become a successful player you have to pay attention to them all the time. A beginner, however, doesn’t even know what pot odds are. He calls a bet with almost every draw because he might hit it with the next card. The pot odds determine your expected value (EV) and thus your profit. If you don’t care about them you are likely lose all your money in the long term.

4. He doesn’t care about positions
Beginners sit at the table; good players are sitting in an early, middle or late position. They know how important the position is and how to adjust to the positions. A beginner knows perhaps that he’s sitting in the big blind because he posted some chips before getting any cards, but that’s pretty much it. He doesn’t pay attention to whether he’s in a position after the flop or not. Not having position is a huge disadvantage you should avoid and having a position is a great advantage you should benefit from.

5. He doesn’t pay attention
In order to become a successful player you have to pay attention to what’s going on at the table. You must know who just suffered a bad round and might be on tilt. You must know where the fishes, rocks, maniacs and sharks are. You must acquire some betting patterns and habits. You must pay attention to everything going on at the table.

6. He can’t figure out if he’s beaten
Beginners lose much of their stack by paying out better hands too often. Sometimes they think they’re beaten but call anyways just to be sure and see the opponents’ cards. Or they don’t interpret the action rightly, thus overvaluing the strength of their hand.

If you think you’re defeated you should fold and save the money. It takes some time and practice to define the strength of your hand correctly. Always pay attention to your opponent’s actions and try to find out what those mean. If you see him betting and betting, even top pair top kicker won’t usually be good enough.

7. He can’t control the pot
Most of the beginners think in black and white. Either they have a good hand or a bad one. If they think their hand is good, they’re betting and betting and betting. Usually, this gets very expensive. They blow a pot with mediocre hands just to find out that the opponent is holding the nuts.

“Big hand – big pot, small hand – small pot!” Memorize it, it’s very important!