Percentage To Odds!

Now that we have a basic understanding of how to figure the percentage of hitting your hand, I’ll show you how to change that percentage to odds.

Let’s use the above example of the flush draw.  To change your percentage into odds, take the 35% and divide it into 100, giving you 2.9 – 1 = 1.9. This means that if there is $40.00 in the pot and it cost you $10.00 to call, you’re getting 4:1 odds on your money in a hand that only needs 1.9:1 …thusly it is mathematically correct to call the bet. This is called pot odds, and is simply the amount of money in the pot divided by how much it cost you to call: $10.00 into a $40.00 pot is 4:1 pot odds, $10.00 into a $100.00 pot would be 10:1 pot odds.

Another Example

 Let’s say you’re drawing to and inside straight, meaning there are only four specific cards in the deck that will complete your hand.

You hold Jc-10h-2s
The board is 8s-7d-4c

You need one of the four remaining nines in the deck to make your straight. Using our simple method, multiply 4 (outs) times 4 and you’ll see that there’s a 16% chance of hitting your hand. If a blank comes on the turn, you then take 4 (outs) times 2 and get 8%. Now to change those percentages to odds, do the same as above. 100 divided by 16 minus one equals 5.25 in odds with two cards to come, and for the river, 100 divided by 8 minus one equals 11.5 in odds needed with one card to come.

 

You will be faced with decisions in every single hand of poker, and you’ll need to know your odds; whether it is mathematically correct to call or fold. Not knowing this information and calling bets when you’re not getting the correct odds will lead to a life time of losing poker, just as in the example of flipping the coin with the wrong odds.

Here’s a chart showing your odds based on number of outs and one or two cards to come

Outs	One Card %	Two Card %	One Card Odds	Two Card Odds	Draw Type
1	2%	4%	46	23	Backdoor Straight or Flush (Requires two cards)
2	4%	8%	22	12	Pocket Pair to Set
3	7%	13%	14	7	One Over card
4	9%	17%	10	5	Inside Straight / Two Pair to Full House
5	11%	20%	8	4	One Pair to Two Pair or Set
6	13%	24%	6.7	3.2	No Pair to Pair / Two Over cards
7	15%	28%	5.6	2.6	Set to Full House or Quads
8	17%	32%	4.7	2.2	Open Straight
9	19%	35%	4.1	1.9	Flush
10	22%	38%	3.6	1.6	Inside Straight & Two Over cards
11	24%	42%	3.2	1.4	Open Straight & One Over card
12	26%	45%	2.8	1.2	Flush & Inside Straight / Flush & One Over card
13	28%	48%	2.5	1.1
14	30%	51%	2.3	0.95
15	33%	54%	2.1	0.85	Flush & Open Straight / Flush & Two Over cards
16	34%	57%	1.9	0.75
17	37%	60%	1.7	0.66