Daily 300 – 3×100 Daily 300

Glossary

Pot odds

The price of a call: what you must add, divided by what the pot will hold after the call. A half-pot bet costs 25%, a full-pot bet 33%.

Pot odds are the price a bet asks. Counted in one line: the call amount divided by the pot after the call. The pot is $10, the opponent bets $5, you add $5 into a pot that will hold $20: the price is 25%. A full-pot bet costs 33%, two pots 40%. The bigger the bet, the dearer the call, but not proportionally: even a ten-pot bet costs less than half.

This price is compared with the share the hand provides: equity against the opponent's range, or the odds of getting there if the hand is unfinished. Share above price means the call is profitable, below means it loses, and that holds whatever the hand's outcome. A call at 25% price with 35% share is right even if the card did not come. A call at 33% price with 20% share is wrong even if it did.

An example from session 8

K♠J♠, two pair on J♣ 8♠ 8♥ 9♥ 7♠, the opponent bets the river. Adding $17.60 into a pot already holding $22: the price of the call is 30.8%. By my estimate three bets in ten here are bluffs, and at that price calling and folding are worth the same. I paid, lost to A♠J♥, minus $28.35, and there is no verdict: the price sits inside the range, not beyond it.

The same in business

Pot odds are the price of entry against the size of the prize, counted before thinking about the chance of success. Bidding for a tender costs a hundred thousand for a two-million contract: the price is 5%, and you need to win more often than one time in twenty. Most entry decisions run the other way: first «we can win», then «what does it cost», and the second never gets counted.

The whole hand is in session 8: “A move out of turn says something about you that you did not mean to say”.

The other terms are in the glossary.