Poker Hand Odds

Okay, do the same thing again, but this time you get to look at the burn cards. Let's say that of all the cards you burned, none were an ace. Now your odds are 2/25 because there are still 2 Aces and now only 25 "unseen cards".

By that same reasoning, let's play a game of draw poker where you get 5 cards as usual, but your opponent gets 40. Say you got Ace, King, Queen, Jack all of Spades!, and a Four of Clubs.

You get to ditch the Four and draw one from the remaining pile of 7 cards. What are your chances of getting that Ten of Spades? Assuming you don't get to see your opponents hand, your chances of drawing that card would be 1 in 47 (1 Ten of Spades in the deck, 47 "unseen cards"). It would NOT be 1 in 7.

Let's say your opponent goes to the bathroom, and you cheat and look at his hand while he's on the crapper. If he doesn't have that Ten of Spades, that would be 1 in 7. If he did, well...it'd be 0 in 7.

Pot odds are as easy as computing outs. You compare your outs or your chance of winning to the size of the pot. If your chance of winning is significantly better than the ratio of the pot size to a bet, then you have good pot odds.

If it's lower, then you have bad pot odds. For example, say you are in a $5/$10 holdem game with Jack-Ten facing one opponent on the turn. You have an outside straight draw with a board of 2-5-9-Q, and only the river card left to make it.

Any 8 or any King will finish this straight for you, so you have 8 outs (four 8's and 4 K's left in the deck) and 46 unseen cards left. 8/46 is almost the same as a 1 in 6 chance of making it. Your sole opponent bets $10. You if you take a $10 bet you could win $200. $200/$10 is 20, so you stand to make 20x more if you call. 1/6 higher than 1/20, so pot odds say that calling wouldn't be a bad idea.

Another clarification...a lot of players want to somehow factor in money they wagered on previous rounds. With the last example, you probably had already invested a significant portion of that $200 pot. Let's say $50.

Does that mean you should play or fold because of that money you already have in there? $50/$200? That's a big no. That's not your money anymore! It's in a pool of money to be given to the winner. You have no "stake" in that pot. The only stake you might have is totally mental and has no bearing on hard statistic.