Learn Pot Odds Texas Holdem

What Are Pot Odds? Pot odds represent the ratio between the size of the total pot and the size of the bet facing you. Keep in mind that the size of the total pot includes the bet (s) made in the current round. For example, if there is $2 in the pot and your opponent bets $1, your pot odds are 3 to 1. There are some very handy tables and examples in this Texas Hold’em strategy section that should help to broaden your understanding of the basics of pot odds in poker. Note: The pot odds examples used in this guide have been in the situation where you have seen the flop and are waiting to see the turn. The same mathematics can be applied for when you are on the turn waiting to see the river, as both odds are almost exactly the same. Now to figure the pot odds you need to know the size of the pot and the amount you need to put into the pot. So if the pot is $100 and you need to bet $10 to call your pot odds are 100:10. In this example the pot odds 100:10 are bigger than the odds of you getting the card you need 35:8 so you should call the bet. Pot odds represent the ratio between the size of the total pot and the size of the bet facing you. Keep in mind that the size of the total pot includes the bet(s) made in the current round. For example, if there is $2 in the pot and your opponent bets $1, your pot odds are 3 to 1.

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I remember when I started with poker, I found remembering the important parts of the game challenging.

But your journey can become easier with this printable poker cheat sheet for beginners (I wish I had this when starting out!).

Table Of Contents

• How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.
• How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example
• How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example
• Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands

Poker Cheat Sheet For Texas Holdem:

Download the high-quality Poker Cheat Sheet printable (PDF) version:

The cheat sheet includes hyperlinks for further reading on any material you may not yet know.

Click here for more information on pre-flop and post-flop. We also discuss Texas Holdem bet sizing in the highlighted link.

If you like the cheat sheet, you may also enjoy these these awesome starting hand charts from upswing poker. They are a more detailed version of the starting hands section in the cheat sheet above which supplement it nicely. Amazingly they have been downloaded almost 200,000 times!

How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.

Step 1: Find your hand on the chart (example KT suited)

Step 2: Determine whether you should follow coloured or number schematic.

Either:

• If first to raise (no other player has raised before you), follow the coloured schematic.
• If facing a raise or reraise, follow the numbered schematic.

Note: If playing on a 6max table (6 players as opposed to 9), the yellow coloured hands will also be able to be played from any position.

See the image below for the numbered and colour schematic.

Step 3: Take into account information give under headings preflop and post flop.

How to play poker preflop is a tough subject to cover in detail. There are many factors you need to take into account such as:

• Your position and your opponents position.
• Your opponents likely holdings
• Board texture
• Previous history

A brief explanation of why position is powerful and why we play fewer hands when there are more players left to act (still with a hand):

When playing on a fullring table, you will have to contend with nine players, who each have a chance of picking up a big hand. Therefore, when playing a full ring game, you will play fewer hands. You can read more on this concept at fullring vs. 6max.

The difference in player numbers is also why we play a wide range of hands from the Button, but very few hands from UTG (first position). When opening the Button, we only have two players left to act (unlikely for them to have a strong hand), whereas when playing from UTG in a full ring game, eight other players could potentially pick up a big hand.

For more in-depth details on this see Texas Holdem Strategy and Position is King!

Step 4: Take home some cash

Hopefully, this poker cheat sheet will help you ‘bring home the bacon' as they say, but there is always something more to learn in poker. Keep reading for some more cheat sheets which might be of use to you.

Get Your Miniature (Credit Card Sized) Texas Holdem Starting Hands Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet only contains the most vital information you need so it can handily fit in your pocket. The legends have also been squeezed onto the hand chart in front of hands we always fold.

To download printable PDF which is scaled to credit card size, use the Facebook unlock button:

Poker Odds Cheat Sheet (for Texas Hold'em)

Get your pot odds cheat sheet below. You can use this to determine the number of outs required to continue based on the pot odds you are being offered. You can also use it to convert between percentages, required outs and ratios for all kinds of situations in poker. The pot odds cheat sheet is explained in more detail below:

Click here to get a high-quality printable pdf version of the Poker Odds Cheat Sheet.

When your opponent bets you will be offered odds based on the size of his bet. For example, if your opponent bets half pot you will be offered odds of 3:1 on a call (call 1 to win 3). Essentially, it is your risk to reward ratio.

Pot odds will tell you whether is it correct for you to call or fold based on what size our opponent bet and how many cards that will improve our hand.

If you are interested in the learning poker math, check out our best poker books recommendation page here for some awesome books on poker math.

How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example

1. Work out pot odds

In this hand, our opponent bets $26 into a $41.5 pot making the total pot size $67.5. This gives us odds of 67.5: 26 (67.5 = 41.5+26). Or approximately 2.6:1. You can also see how to convert this into a percentage in our article pot odds.

2. Find 2.6:1 on the card (or as close to it as possible).

We locate 2.6:1 on the chart tells us that 2.6:1 translates to 30.11% pot equity. In other words:

• if we win 30% of the time, we will break even,
• if we win > 30% of the time we will make a profit on average in this situation
• if we win <30% of the time, we will make a loss on average in this situation

3. Determine our actual equity

This is the tough part, unfortunately.

You have to estimate how often you are beaten by your opponent in order to determine if you can profitably call or not. To do this you can use a program such as equilab to plug in hands that you think your opponent may have and the hand that you currently hold. To learn more about estimating what your opponent may be holding see the article poker hand range: the comprehensive beginner guide. From the example above, we plug in some hands we think our opponent may have and see that we have 34% equity:

4. Determine if we can profitably call.

Since our equity is greater than our pot odds, we can profitably call the river bet. If our equity were less than the pot odds being offered, we would have to fold as we cannot c call.

How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example

Let's take a similar situation (confronted with a bet), except this time we are on the flop with KQs, and we have a flush draw with nine outs. A King and Queen which could be considered outs, but they aren't clean outs. This means even if we hit our hand we still may not win (say for example our opponent has AA).

1. Work out equity percentage:

Since we have nine clean outs, we can simply go to the number 9 on the card and then determine our equity.

This means that we need a minimum pot odds of 1.9:1 or 38% when we have nine outs on the flop with two cards still to come.

3. Compare pot odds to odds given by bettor.

Our equity is 38%, so we need pot odds of less than 38%. The lower the pot odds, the more profitable the call.

Our pot odds are 12.5/33 which is 37%, and hence we just about have the pot odds to call. However, we are also in positon (and will act last with more information) and have two overcards to the board (both a King and Queen will make top pair good kicker). So this is an easy call.

4. Further reading

We need seven outs to continue, and we have nine outs with a flush draw. See calculating outs for more details.

For more information on how to use this poker cheat sheet see poker and pot odds.

This video will also be useful to you:

Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands

In case you aren't familiar with the hand strengths, and hand rankings of poker check out the printout Texas Holdem hands cheat sheet:

(You may also be interested in the rules of texas hold em)

There are a few important things to remember when memorising at the poker hand rankings:

Best Five Cards Win

In poker, it is always the best five cards wins. This means it is not only the pairs that matter if there is no clear winner (nobody has a pair), the decision will go down to high card wins.

Kickers

Kickers decide the winning hand when two opponents have the same pair or three of a kind. For example, if one opponent has AQ (ace-queen) and another has AJ, the opponent with AQ would win on an A7522 board as he has the five card hand of AAQ75 whereas the second opponent has AAJ75.

Split Pots

Split pots occur when opponents have the same hand. For example, imagine one opponent has A4 and the other A3 on AQ752 board. Both opponents would have five card hand of AAQ75. Neither the 4 or 3 would play.

You can get more information about hand rankings on our web page here.

If you are more visually inclined, check out this video on poker hand rankings:

For more on Texas Hold'em strategy, see poker 101.

Make sure you check out the fan favourite posts:

Common poker mistakes & Texas Holdem Poker Tips

Good luck at the poker tables with your new poker cheat sheet!

Texas Holdem Odds Chart

After the flop, your play will depend on many factors, including information gathered pre-flop, what you know of your opponents and how they play, and the probabilities of having or making the best hand. If you have hit top pair with a strong kicker on the flop, then you have a strong hand and should bet at the pot. But the more difficult scenario is when you have flopped a flush draw or a straight draw, or perhaps an inside straight draw with two over cards. If someone bets, should you make the call?

At this point, it is important to first surmise what your opponent’s hand is. Then, you must calculate the number of outs you have to make your hand the winning hand. The final step is to then understand the probabilities of hitting one of your outs, giving you the winning hand. These are all crucial steps in the decision making process.

For example, let’s say I am holding JT offsuit.

The flop comes A 8 9 – rainbow.

The pot is current at $8.00, and Player1 bets $2.00. Everyone else folds.

Should I make the call?

Well, first I should think about what he may be holding. Let’s say there was no pre-flop raise and Player1 is in early position. He may have a pair of Aces with no kicker, or maybe a pair of 9’s.

So, if I put him on a pair of Ace’s, then I would need either a 7 or a Q to complete my straight and win the hand. Therefore, I have 8 outs – the four 7’s in the deck plus the four Q’s in the deck.

Now, if I have 8 outs, here is the calculation of hitting one of my cards on the turn or river:

There are 47 cards left unseen (I’m holding 2, there are 3 on the board, 52-5= 47). 47 – 8 outs = 39.

My calculation becomes: 1 – 39/47 (turn) * 38/46 (46 cards unseen prior to river):

1 – 39/47 * 38/46 = 31.5%

I have a 31.5% chance to hit my hand over the turn and river.

Learn Pot Odds Texas Hold'em

Now back to our scenario, I have to call a $2.00 bet to win what will be a $12.00 pot. Since my bet is only about 17% of the pot, yet I have a 31.5% chance of winning (across the turn & river card!), the “pot odds” justify making the call.

Now let’s say Player1 bets $12 instead of $2. I would have to call $12 to win what will be a $32 pot. My bet is 37.5% of the pot, greater than my odds of hitting one of my outs, and therefore I should fold (we will get to implied odds further down).

The above scenarios are important to grasp. Picture yourself on the flip side now. Let’s say you have a pair of Aces, and you do not want to allow someone to out draw you. You should do exactly what was outlined above – bet more than their odds would justify. If you bet the amount of the pot, then those chasing the straight (or the flush for that matter) are not getting proper pot odds to call, so you either force them to fold, or you force them to play incorrectly and chase a hand when they are betting against the odds. Your bet can help cause your opponents to make mistakes and incorrectly play their flush draw or straight draw.

Learn Pot Odds Texas Holdem Odds

So, how are you supposed to calculate your probabilities on the fly in the heat of battle… without a calculator? You don’t. See the chart below! You can right click and save the chart on your computer and even print it off to look at whenever you need!

Memorize these figures (particularly the first chart), they will help you justify your calls. Now, the above scenarios were pretty simplified. There are other, more advanced, factors to potentially consider. For example, if you do not hit your card on the turn, can you assume Player1 will bet again and how much? If you know this information, this should also be included in your calculation of the bet vs. pot amounts.

Let’s say you know Player1 will probably bet another $4 on the turn. So really, you are looking at calling $6.00 against a pot of $16.00. The percentage now is 37.5% (6/16) as opposed to our earlier example where it was 17%. In this case, the call isn’t as clear and the current pot odds don’t quite justify the call because 37.5% is greater than our 31.5%. However, there are implied odds to consider, and these odds may justify making this call.

Learn Texas Holdem Free

This is the last factor that is important to consider; implied odds. In the game of No-Limit Hold’em, you potentially could win a much larger pot than the current pot you are calculating your odds against. If you do hit your hand, could you then bet the entire pot amount and assume Player1 will call? How much of a bankroll does Player1 have and is it possible to take it all on this hand? These are interesting questions and also can affect your decision. The total pot size at the very end of the hand, could easily justify making the call in the hopes of winning that pot. This is called “implied odds” and should also be considered.

Now go play and try incorporating this knowledge. I would say good luck, but luck is the enemy of a good player. Better yet, good pot odds!

Texas Holdem Pot Odds Calculator

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