#5: How to calculate pot-odds

Since we're quite a bit on the mathematical tour, we're going to continue this before going to discuss some other big aspects. It's all pretty logical stuff, but you do need to know it in order to become a winning poker player, especially since the games are pretty hard nowadays anyhow.

So. We are dealt QhKh under the gun in a 6-Max, rakefree, game, and we raise it up to 3bb. Btn who has a small 25bb stack makes a 3Bet to 10bb. Blinds fold, we call and see the flop Ah3h9c. We check to him, and he ships his remaining stack of 15bb.

But can we make a profitable call?

-We quickly estimate our equity (previous article) to 4*9 = 36%
-The potsize:
   Preflop: 1.5bb (blinds) + 10bb + 10bb = 21.5bb
   Flop: 15bb
   So the potsize is 15 + 21.5 = 36.5bb

We need to call 15bb to win a 36.5 + 15bb = 51.5bb pot

This gives us the following pot odds: (15/51.5) * 100% = 29.1%

Since the pot-odds are lower then our equity, we can make a profitable call. Said in words: The reason why we can make a profitable call although we have approximately 36% equity, is because of the money we allready invested in the pot.

How much $$ do we make with our call?

Now we came so far, it's pretty easy to calculate the so-called Expected Value of calling his flopbet.

Percentage equity - Percentage pot-odds = Edge in %
36.0% - 29.1% = 6.9%

Multiplie this percentage by the size of the pot.
6.9% * 51.5bb =  3.55bb

We win 3.55b on average by calling his flop bet.