Here's a shortcut to calculate pot odds in poker. If you use odds right you have the basics of winning poker down.
Here's the formula: outs * 2 * cards left to deal
For example, let's say you have a flush draw. You have two hearts and two more are on the board so there are 9 unknown cards out there that are your "outs". It's the flop so you have two more cards coming.
So, 9 * 2 * 2 = 36
You have roughly a 36% chance of making your flush.
Note: this is not exact, and there's some rounding going on to make the calculation easier (specifically this is how you'd do it for a 50 card deck, not a 52 card deck) but you will only be off by a few percentage points and this is exact enough for competitive poker.
Learn the shortcut well and calculate your odds on every street.
I'm usually not chasing, so if I'm involved it means someone is sucking out on me. If someone hits their flush draw on me they usually cracked a monster.
On the flop, if someone has a flush draw and I'm betting they only have a 36% chance of winning. Because I'll bet them out of pot odds, they will be "chasing" for their flush with bad odds.
In the long run, I win in those situations. But about 36% of the time I lose, and the most common "bad beat" (when you had the odds but they got lucky) is that precise scenario. Someone is chasing a flush or a straight and got lucky.
<- Just wanted to see if that worked... feel free to vote this post out of existence.
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