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            There comes a time in every poker player's career when they first hear of pot odds- perhaps that time has come for you, and perhaps that's why you're here. If so, congratulations- you're taking a necessary step towards becoming a great player! The concept of Pot Odds is absolutely critical for every player to know and understand. Although it is not a particularly difficult concept to learn, it is one that opens up a great many more avenues for one to explore advanced strategy.

            At the core, Pot Odds are a tool you can use to judge whether or not you should continue playing a hand given previous betting, and hand potential. Pot Odds can tell you whether you should chase that draw to the river, or fold your hand on the flop. Essentially, Pot Odds offer you a way to calculate mathematical expectation on the fly. This is critical to maintaining your profit in any game of chance, and especially in Hold'em.

             To start, let's look at the following hand. You are playing a game of $.50/1 blind No-Limit Hold'em. You are dealt the ace of diamonds and the queen of spades preflop. You raise to $3 preflop, and an opponent to your left calls. The blinds both fold, and now you are heads up in the pot. 

Pot: $7.50 

            You are on the button, so you are last to act when the flop is dealt. The three cards come down the king of diamonds, the 2 of diamonds, and the 6 of diamonds, meaning, you are one diamond away from the nut flush! Your opponent bets a whopping $7.50 into the $7.50 pot. 

Pot: $15

            The Pot Odds you are getting in any situation can be calculated by comparing the bet you need to call to the size of the pot. In this instance, you need to call a $7.50 bet in order to draw to your flush. There is $15 in the pot. Therefore, you are getting 15:7.5 on your money to call, or exactly 2:1. In order to make a call profitable in this situation, your odds of winning the hand need to be greater than 2:1.

           You are almost certain your opponent holds a set of kings. You are beat unless you make your flush. Can you profitably call his bet and draw to it? Let's ask the Pot Odds. There are 5 diamond cards face-up that we know of, leaving 8 that make your hand.  There are 45 unknown cards in total. As follows, 8 out of 45 cards help your hand. What this means is that you can compare our pot odds (2:1) to this ratio of 'outs' (cards that help your hand), 45:8, and figure out whether or not you should call. The odds you need to be getting to make a call profitable here are at least 45:8, which reduces to 5.625:1. Since your opponent's bet gives you 2:1, you cannot profitably call- the odds you are getting are significantly worse than what you need. Even though you may call and get extremely lucky, hitting your flush on the turn, the amount of times you will not hit far outweigh the number of times you will, and you will lose money in the long run by calling without odds.

            Let's use the same hand, but change our opponent's flop bet a bit. Instead of $7.5, he decides to throw out a small $1.25 bet. Can we profitably see a turn card in this situation? Let's analyze. After his flop bet, the pot becomes $8.75. You need to call a $1.25 bet in order to see a turn. So, the pot is offering you odds of 8.75:1.25, which reduces to 7:1. Since the odds you are now getting to call (7:1) are greater than the odds you need (5.625:1) you can draw to your flush on the turn. Close your eyes and hope for a diamond, you've made a play with positive expectation!

            Once you grasp the concepts outlined above you will find yourself caught in a head-first dive into the world of poker strategy. You will cross the line from being a losing gambler, to becoming a skilled player, and will find the results you will achieve using even the most basic poker concepts, such as Pot Odds to be astounding! Don't look back!