One of the main reasons why poker players new to the concept of calculating the pot odds have such a keen desire to learn the nuances of mathematical calculations this requires is to boost their luck with precision playing as calculating pot odds significantly ups their winning chances and pros are known to depend heavily on this technique. This is also why the ability to correctly calculate pot odds is often looked upon by the advanced poker players as the chief cornerstone of playing a winning game, though for others who haven’t quite got the hang of it, this could well mean raising their annoyance value in the eyes of other experienced players who have no other choice but to simply look on in sporting spirit while the newbies calculate the odds on every available digit on their hands (sometimes feet!)

So, unless you want to appear at the receiving end of barely concealed annoyance expressing glances from the advanced level poker players at your table, it is a good idea to learn how to quickly calculate pot odds for your game and let everyone get on with the match. Not only is it good poker etiquette but the quicker you can learn to figure out pot odds the better for your hold’em hand winnings too.

To begin with, let’s concentrate on a typical scenario: suppose you have a hold’em hand where two spades are the hole cards and two more appear on flop, then you are in for a potential spade run. Now, you can set about calculating the making of your hand. This means, out of 13 spades, you have 4 so there are 9 others out there that can help you achieve a flush; so you multiply the ‘outs’ by in ‘ins’ (you have) and you get 36. Since here the number of outs is more than the figure 8, you need to minus 1 from this calculation and you arrive at number 35 (9×4 equals 36 being your multiplication of outs to ins equation). This places your flush making chances at 35% of the time.

Moving on, if the spade does not come up on the FullTilt turn, the position of the river card (last card) is inevitable, which means your odds are still the same. So, from the initial 35% chance of your getting the hand, you are now on the river; you need to multiply all outs by 2 (9×2 equals 18) to come up with the current chances of getting a spade draw on the river – that’s right, it is 18%! If you’ve already had more than 6 outs, you can add 1% to this figure and your chances for making a spade flush are reduced to 19% at this stage.

Now you will naturally want to analyze if you should bet and what kind with 19% pot odds. So, here is where player instinct kicks in. Or you can choose to further calculate by dividing the pot with the bet amount. Say, it is a $120 pot and you need $18 for staying in the game, then divide the pot figure by your winning chance to arrive at the nearest whole number, which needs to be divided by 100 and any remainder will further need to be divided by the whole number. So, 120 divided by 18 gives you 6.66, which rounded up to the closest whole number is 7, which is further divided by 100 to leave 14 as the quotient and 2 as remainder. The 7 that you got on dividing 120 by 18 divides this; so the final figure is 3.5, or a fraction representation of 1/3. This gives you the current pot odds of 14 one thirds percent, approximately.

Depending on your tolerance of risks while playing on FullTiltPoker.com, you can choose to bet though pros recommend doing so because your 19% spade flush chance in relation with a 14 1/3 % bet for the pot clearly puts the odds in your favor.

So, practice, calculate accurately, go with your gut and win lots more poker games!