You add the amount of the bet to what is already in the pot to calculate the reward, the bet you need to call represents the risk, and the pot odds 'being given' to call is that reward-to-risk ratio. That's the scenario poker players most often describe when talking about pot odds - that is, when facing a bet and deciding whether or not to call or fold.
In this case you're having to risk $20 to win $100, so your pot odds are 100-to-20, or 5-to-1. Pot odds are expressed as a ratio (reward-to-risk). That $100 is the reward you can get if you're willing to risk $20 to call the bet. Calculating Pot Oddsįor example, if there is $80 in the pot and your opponent bets $20, that makes a total of $100 in the middle. Put most simply, pot odds represents the ratio between what you stand to gain in a hand of poker and what you have to spend in order to get it - that is, the ratio between your reward and your risk when making any given decision during a poker hand.
One of the first and most important examples of 'poker math' that new no-limit hold'em players need to learn is how to calculate 'pot odds.' In fact, when people talk about the 'math of poker,' a lot of the time they are mostly referring to pot odds and how an understanding of them can help you decide whether to bet, raise, call, or fold.
