Confused a bit about pot odds

Example on the turn you check and villain bets $3.50 into 7$ pot

Your pot odds to call are 3:1
Does this mean you need to be good 1 in 4 times to call the turn or does this kind of assessment best suited for the river without further betting rounds ?Say on the turn we only need to be beating his hands 1/4 times so what I have to do is discypher what he could be bluffing with versus what he’s value betting so decide if I am in fact good enough to call profitably..I’m trying to also figure out bluffing ranges so I can make correct calls with the value to bluff ratio but I’m trying to tie it all together here.

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Originally Posted by DonkeyBets

Example on the turn you check and villain bets $3.50 into 7$ pot

Your pot odds to call are 3:1
Does this mean you need to be good 1 in 4 times to call the turn or does this kind of assessment best suited for the river without further betting rounds ?

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When the payout odds are 3:1, you need to win the bet 25% or more. This is always true, because it's deeper than poker. It's just math.

For any financial decision, if the cost to participate is C, and the reward for participation is R, then the break even point is P, the percent of times you need to achieve the reward for each entry fee, where 0 <= P <= 100%.
P of the time, we win R. (1-P) of the time, we lose C.

P*R - (1-P)*C = 0 | Our problem to solve for P

P*R - C + P*C = 0 | Distribute to eliminate the ()
P*R + P*C = C | Rearrange in preparation to isolate P
P*(R+C) = C | Reverse distribute to isolate P

P = C / (R+C) | We are finished

P = bet / (pot + bet) is just the way it appears in poker.


Where poker makes it complicated is in implied odds. I.e. the value of the payout is assumed to be bigger than it actually, currently is. You imply that if you call now, you will get another bet or call from Villain.

What happens after the bet in question affects the total profitability of the line, but the fundamental basic part hasn't changed. If the total equity of the call is above 25%, you can profitably call. That total equity includes the additional equity of when you bluff them off the best hand and the reduced equity of when you fail to bluff or when you make your draw and they don't put in any more bets, etc.

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Originally Posted by DonkeyBets

Say on the turn we only need to be beating his hands 1/4 times so what I have to do is discypher what he could be bluffing with versus what he’s value betting so decide if I am in fact good enough to call profitably..I’m trying to also figure out bluffing ranges so I can make correct calls with the value to bluff ratio but I’m trying to tie it all together here.

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That's an good way to go about it.

As ever, work on understanding your own ranges first. Figure out when and why you bluff, and what you expect when you do so.
Each villain will bluff differently, in different spots, for different reasons, with different bet sizes.... that's all stuff you kinda have to just take on a case by case basis.

Starting by understanding your own ranges gives you a baseline to compare their ranges to, and to try to extrapolate, "if they're doing A, then maybe they also do Aa..." and you can work in steps like that.

You'll 100% always be surprised by villains. You're not a mind-reader. This is guess-work that punishes us with every missed guess. It hits the opponents just as much as us, more preferably.


Have you tried playing with my suggested Pre-flop ranges, yet? I'm interested in your feedback, as I think it's the correct place to start figuring out ranges.

Yeah I've been using pre-flop ranges for a while now even though through my hands posted it might not always seem so lol. I've studied alot of pokerstrategies articles and their preflop ranges are very similar to what you've posted. I will try to incorporate yours as is seems slightly tailor made . In the past 2 days I have been playing 6max with pretty good results. in the past 2 days I've gone up 20 dollars which is alot to me .I took alot of your advice about anaylsing what villains do and focusing on how they play as well as taking notes on their lines and hole cards shown and it has helped tremendously. I am paying attention to everything and alot of the micro 6-max players are less than skilled.
I also have been playing with equilab which has its own pre-flop range templates I look at too. Right now I am trying to understand calling ranges which feels like it takes some time but also SB and BB defending ranges which seem like : 77-22,AQs-A2s,K7s+,Q7s+,J7s+,T8s+,98s,87s,76s,65s,AQo-A9o,KTo+,QTo+,JTo,

I still need work on ranges I am probrably going to buy equilab to keep training with ranges , I also want to understand bluffing and value combos though I feel like they are needed to become better. I know at my level I just need ABC poker but I play very scared sometimes and confused when villains certainly feel like they are bluffing me with OESD or flushdraws . If i can get a hunch on how many times villain is bluffing me I can plug in the numbers to the ratios and decide when its profitable to call sticky situations and I feel like that would make my profits takeoff. please let me know what you think. You have helped me very much thus far and I value your input

If you calculate that you have 25% equity vs his value range, and you have 1:3 pot odds, then you're breaking even, assuming he never bluffs. But if he bluffs just one combo of hands, which is ludicrously tight bluffing, then that translates to profit. Some players simply do not bluff, but they are rare. You just have to ask "what can he be bluffing with". Sometimes it doesn't make any sense for him to have any bluffs, perhaps you 3bet pre flop and bet flop and turn on Axxx, he he check/raises the turn. Highly unlikely to be a bluff. But in most spots, villains will usually have a least a few combos of bluffs, perhaps a missed flush draw, or even pure garbage after you check a street.

If you think villain is bluffing with a flush draw (before river), you do have to be cautious. This is actually a semi-bluff, and they will have a lot of equity, especially on the flop. I'd argue betting AK as the raiser on a missed flop is also a semi-bluff, for the simple reason it can actually be a value bet in some cases, and even when it's losing it can easily make top pair. A stone cold bluff is when we have very little equity and no showdown value, ie we know we're losing the pot if we get to showdown. If villains are only semi-bluffing and never stone cold bluffing, then it's tricky, because their range is strong. But it's still good for us if we break even against their value range. If we're losing to their value range, that's when we need to start thinking about how much he bluffs, and what kind of hands he can bluff with. Are his bluffs enough to turn a losing play into a winning one? A difficult question to answer.

Don't be afraid to lose to a bluff. It's great when we call a second pair hand and catch a bluff, it makes us feel good. But if villain isn't bluffing enough, then it might still be a losing play over time. It really does depend on villain's bluffing frequency, and that you can only really have an idea about by watching him play.

I particularly like the "Equity Trainer" tool in Equilab where you could tell it a range for Hero and Villain, and it would pick a random hand from Hero's range and show you a random flop. Then you have an equity slider to try to guess how much equity that hand on that flop has against the range you used for Villain.

When you're in the mood, create your own mini-game and play until you get bored of it. It trains the gut to recognize how flop textures intersect with Villain's range. I found it often eye-opening to play that game. I'd get on a hot streak and guess 3 - 4 in a row, then the 5th one, I'd be off by 15%, and I'd be asking what I missed.... so helpful.