That’s Odd(s) – Part 1
Hi Folks,
And welcome to this week’s pearl of wisdom from the “corner”. I’d like to cover something which everyone who plays poker knows about, but doesn’t necessarily understand or use……..odds. For those new to this concept, it’s really not as scary as it sounds and the math needed is actually fairly simple. I think it can really help make your game more profitable.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a stats expert or mathematician (I didn’t even do math at school) so what I’m going to give you is a quick and easy odds calculation to help with working out the possibility (%) of times that you’ll make your hand. It’s not absolute purist math so the advice I give you will be approximate, not exact. Let’s begin:
Odds of hitting/making a hand:
Let me start by telling you what “outs” are. Simply put, they are any of the remaining cards in the deck that you need to make your hand (or increase its strength). So let’s say in a game of Texas Hold’em, I’ve got an Ace and Two as my hole cards. The flop comes out Three, Four, Ten. That means that I’m sitting with a potential straight (A234). I need the Five to complete the hand.
Since I have no five in my hand and there’s no five on the flop and we can’t see our opponents’ cards, we take it that there are still four Fives left in the deck. The neat little trick that I learned to get an approximate percentage of time that I’ll get the cards goes like this – COMMIT THIS TO MEMORY:
(4 outs x 2 + 1) = 9% (approximate) chance that I will get the card that I need to make the hand.
Easy, huh? Do the same with a potential flush:
You’ve got two diamonds and two more diamonds and a club appears on the flop. That means there are 4 diamonds which you can see out of the 13 in the deck which leaves 9 diamonds still to come.
(9 outs x 2 + 1) = 18% (approximate) chance that I’ll hit the card that I need
Some folks say to add 2 instead of 1 once you’ve multiplied your outs by 2, but I prefer to go a little bit more conservative as it makes me more disciplined. Now the brains who are reading this are probably thinking this isn’t entirely accurate. Let me stress, this is an approximation and can help beginners and even intermediate players make better decisions and I just don’t have the grey matter to delve to heavily into the math side anyway 
Now where odds really come into play is weighing up the chance of hitting your hand vs. the pot odds that you’re getting. In other words: what your chances are of hitting your hand, vs. how much money you could win. This is called Pot Odds. I’ll cover the relationship between calculating your outs and pot odds and whether it’s worth calling a bet in the next edition.
Till then readers, may your opponents be plagued by 7 – 2 off suit.
Adrian
