Poker odds calculator

Reading the numbers

Win is how often your hand is the only best hand once all five board cards are out. Tie is how often you share the pot. Equity puts the two together: your wins plus your part of every split. If your equity is 40% in a pot of 100, the hand is worth 40 to you on average, though any single hand either wins, splits or loses.

When few cards are unknown, the calculator deals out every possible board and random hand, so the result is exact. When there are too many, as with most preflop spots, it samples 100,000 random deals instead.

Outs and the rule of 2 and 4

An out is a card that takes you from behind to ahead. A flush draw on the flop has nine. The rule of 2 and 4 turns outs into a percentage: times 2 for one card to come, times 4 on the flop for both the turn and the river. Nine outs gives 36% by the river against an exact 35.0%. The shortcut gets less accurate with big draws: 15 outs suggests 60%, while the real figure is 54.1%. The outs panel shows both numbers side by side whenever you are behind on the flop or turn.

Pot odds, with an example

Pot odds compare the price of a call with what you can win. Say the pot is 60 on the turn and your opponent bets 20. You have to call 20 to win a pot that will then be 100, so you need 20% equity to break even. With a flush draw you have 9 outs among 46 unseen cards, which is 19.6%. That is just short, so on the numbers alone the call loses a little, unless you expect to win more on the river when the flush arrives.

Why favorites lose so often

Preflop edges are smaller than they feel. Kings beat aces about 18% of the time, and ace king against a small pair is close to a coin flip. More players shrink every edge: pocket aces have about 85% equity against one random hand but only about 35% against eight. Run a few of your own hands through the calculator at a full table to see it.

Poker in Los Angeles card rooms

In the card rooms near Los Angeles, you play poker against the other players, not the house. The room charges a collection on each hand or a fee for time at the table, instead of building an edge into every bet the way house banked casino games do. That charge comes out of the money in play, so a small edge over the table has to cover it before it turns into a profit.

Knowing the odds does not remove the swings. Set a limit before you sit down, and if the game has stopped being fun, our responsible gambling page lists free, confidential help.