Quote Originally Posted by Shadowskills
Thanks all!

I'll get on studying pot odds.

How long did it take you guys to get your pot odds down on the fly? In other words, how long did it take you to get good enough to calculate pot odds during a round?
The best quick and dirty way I have found is to take the number of outs you have and subtract it from 13 to get the odds for hitting your draw on the next card. This holds up for most common draws (between about 5 and 9 outs).

9 outs = 4:1 (flush draw)
8 outs = 5:1 (open ended straight draw)
7 outs = 6:1 (gutshot + one overcard)
6 outs = 7:1 (two overcards)
5 outs = 8:1 (improve one pair to two pair or trips)

The way I most commonly use is to multiply my outs by the ratio of the pot to the bet. If the total is greater than the number of cards to come, then I have odds to call.

Example: $10 in the pot, $1 bet to me on the flop. I figure I have 6 outs (two overcards), so $10/$1*6 = 60 > 47 - 6 = 41 unhelpful cards, so I call. If it were raised and the bet were $2, then $10/$2*6 = 30 < 47 - 6 = 41, so I fold.

This method is easy to use in limit play, since the pot is usually a pretty even multiple of the bet you have to call.