A brief look at Holdem Poker odds

Every hand that you play in Holdem Poker has its own set of odds and statistical probabilities. Being able to calculate odds, or at least have an idea of how they affect play, is an important skill for a Holdem Poker player to develop, as the ability to consider hand possibilities and react to them appropriately will make or break a player in the long term.

Dont Panic its not Rocket Science!

A head for figures and statistics is not vital as many calculations are reasonably simple, or use shortcuts.

Poker is a game of decisions and knowing the probabilities involved in a hand can help you make the right decision at the right time. 

For example, if you are holding a pair of kings before the flop and your opponent pushes all his chips into the middle, you are probably going to call. You know that your hand is one of the strongest and you are really only worried about your opponent holding a pair of aces. Knowing that a pair of aces is dealt once every 222 hands or so, you feel the odds are in your favor here and you make a good decision.

Count your outs

Knowing your chances to improve your hand is also important. Poker players call these chances to improve outs. Lets say you are holding a 7-8 of diamonds and the flop comes 7h-4d-6d. Here you have a good hand. Any one of the nine remaining diamonds in the deck (there are 13 of each suit and you are holding two, with two more on the board) will give you a flush. In addition, another of the remaining two 7s will give you trips, while any of the three 8s remaining will give you two pair. Finally, any of the four 5s remaining will give you a straight.

That gives you a total of 18 outs (9+2+3+4). Seeing there are only 52 cards in the deck and two of them are in your hand and three are on the table, which means that there are still 47 you havent seen. Of those 47outs, 18 are going improve your hand which means a little better than one card out of every three is going to improve your position  and there are still two cards to come in the hand. Knowing that, it should be fairly obvious that you should be shipping your chips towards the middle.

Dont forget Lady Luck

However, you must understand that the odds will give you a picture, but not the whole picture. You should also consider your opponent and how he has been playing before making your final decision. If your opponent only bets when he is holding a pair of aces, then you dont really need any odds calculations to know when to drop your cards in the muck pile.

So stay alert, use Holdem Poker odds, but dont rely on them. A little bit of gut instinct is always a great help to a bit of science.