This free online poker odds calculator and analyzer helps you to calculate your hand's winning odds, evaluate possible opponents hands you could lose to and tell you how much to bet optimally. Gain an edge by using our calculator while you are playing online Texas Hold'em. We include the following features: Your winning chance (or equity). Decide which number represents chances for success (for winning), and which number represents chances against success (for losing). In this case, there are five chances for success and 12 chances against success. Sum up all of the chances: 5 + 12 = 17. Calculate the probability of winning according to the odds formulas: 5/17 = 29.41%.

It’s incredibly difficult to put your opponent on an exact hand. Therefore, most of the time, you have to think in terms of poker hand ranges. Even though you don’t have a specific idea of what cards are in your opponent’s hand, a hand range gives you something to work with.

Beginners may not have thought of this, but winning players make almost all their decisions based on poker hand ranges and knowing the different types of poker hands you might get is extremely important. Your every action changes an opponent’s idea of your hand range and vice-versa. You can have anything when cards are dealt but every fold, call or raise tells something about the range of hands you can have.

Most players fail to make the effort to figure out a hand range. However, every player who intends to be a long-term winner needs to know how to analyze and weight hand ranges.

Betonline Poker - #1 in the U.S

• Accepts U.S. customers with large player pool
• 10+ years with a strong reputation
• $2,500 deposit bonus

Get Your 100% Bonus

Poker Hand Combinations

How to use a poker range calculator? In order to be able to calculate a range of hands, the first thing you need to keep in mind is how many possible hand combinations there are for different types of hands:

Hand Type	Combinations
Pocket Pairs	6
Non-Paired	16
Suited Non-Paired	4
Off-Suit Non-Paired	12

So what does the table tell you?

• There are more variations of non-paired hands than pocket pairs.
  For example, if you think an opponent’s hand range is 44 and 87, it’s more likely for the opponent to have 87 (16 combinations) than 44 (six combinations).
• There are four combinations of suited non-paired hands and 12 combinations of off-suited non-paired hands. Knowing this makes it easier to calculate the likelihood of an opponent having a suited hand.

Using Hand Ranges in Poker

Here’s a scenario: you raise with AK-offsuit pre-flop and the opponent calls. You know the opponent calls in this situation 15% of the time. According to Equilab, here’s the top 15% of poker hands (although someone’s 15% can include different hands–for example, one might play 66 rather than KT-offsuit):

Top 15% of all poker hands (in blue).

You have AK-offsuit, and you’d like to figure out how your hand matches up against the opponent’s hand range. So you use Equilab to calculate it and you see that AK-offsuit has 61.36% equity while the opponent has 38.64%. Sounds like a good deal for you.

Most players assume they’d do well but they have never thought their opponent’s hand range through and evaluated it against their own hand. Once you get the habit of using an equity calculator, you’ll be surprised by how much or little equity certain hands have against certain hand ranges.

Your idea of an opponent’s hand range changes with every decision the opponent makes. So let’s say, instead of calling your raise, the opponent decides to raise, which he does 3.75% of the time. Here’s the hand range:

Top 3.75% of all poker hands (in blue).

Based on the opponent’s hand range, he’d now have ~57% equity. When he just calls, you’re still ahead of his hand range; when he re-raises, your AK-offsuit is in trouble.

Weighted Hand Ranges

But an opponent may play certain hands out of his hand range more often than others. For example, instead of re-raising 100% of the time with 99, he may only do so 50% of the time. Based on your reads, you assign more or less weight to a certain hand in a range of hands and, just like before, calculate how your hand does against it.

And it can make a big difference. For example, an opponent’s hand range is AA and QQ while you have KK. In case the opponent plays both AA and QQ 100% of the time in that situation, you might consider your chances of winning poker around 50%, but if the opponent plays AA 100% of the time and only plays QQ some other % of the time, your chances of winning take a hit. You’d be going against AA the majority of the time.

How to Calculate a Weighted Hand Range

So let’s say you have JJ pre-flop and you’re up against an all-in raise. You think the opponent could do this with AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQ. How many hand combinations do you beat and how many beat you?

Hand combinations that beat you:

Hand	Combinations
AA	6
KK	6
QQ	6
Total	18

Hand combinations that you beat:

Hand	Combinations
AK	16
AQ	16
Total	32

You beat 32 of your opponent’s hand combinations and the opponent beats you with 18 combinations. By using Equilab, we can see that your equity is 42.60%. If, however, the opponent only has AK and AQ 50% of the time (which is a relatively realistic scenario), here’s what happens:

Hand combinations that beat you v2:

Hand	Combinations
AA	6
KK	6
QQ	6
Total	18

Hand combinations that you beat v2:

Hand	Combinations
AK	8
AQ	8
Total	16

And by using Equilab, we can see that our equity drops to about 36%. That’s a dramatic difference in the long run. which can make the difference between whether you should call or fold, which obviously depends on pot and bet sizes and how much money you and your opponent have left.

Learning to weight poker hand ranges is worth your while. Weighting hand ranges gives you more accurate information about your chances in different poker situations as long as you determine the hand combinations right. Like in almost every skill game in the world, the more complicated a theory is, the harder it is to execute and the more profitable it is when executed perfectly. With a little bit of work and thinking you’ll get more accurate calculations.

How to Manipulate Hand Ranges

The basic idea of manipulating hand ranges is To make strong hands look weak and the other way around. This way we can get the most out of our hands because either the opponent likes to call when we’ve got a tight range of hands – meaning we can get the money in with a strong hand – or the opponent likes to fold when we’ve got a loose range, meaning we can get the opponent to fold when we have a weak hand.

One of the biggest problems is to recognize what strong and weak play is in an opponent’s opinion. Obviously Lisa and Bart are going to read situations differently and they’re going to end up having different ideas of who’s weak and who isn’t. Another problem is to know who’s been paying attention to the game and who has other things to focus on. You have to rely on the idea that the opponent follows the game at least semi-closely and adjusts his play optimally against your range of hands. Usually it’s easy to tell who’s following the game, though.

The third problem would be to understand how an opponent reacts to the way you play. There are different ways for players to react, obviously, since otherwise all the players would play the same way. Some make logical decisions, some don’t.

All of these points must be taken into consideration when manipulating hand ranges in poker. It’s of no use to build an image for yourself if the opponent pays no attention to the game. It might be counterproductive to build an image if the opponent reacts unlike you expected. You’ll always have to consider these points when building a player image and manipulating your range.

Common Mistakes – Being Optimistic

The biggest mistake when figuring out a hand range is to have too much optimism when making decisions. For example, always believing the best and creating hand ranges that are convenient for you is a huge mistake and misses the whole idea. It’s not just about winning; it’s also about losing the least possible. By realizing your hand range is unprofitable against an opponent’s hand range, you avoid losing money.

Giving Up

Losing is a part of poker and beating most of an opponent’s range doesn’t mean you’ll win all of the pots. You’ll lose a certain percentage of them, and you may even have an extremely unlikely run of losses but such is variance.

Other strategies

If you are looking for different strategies go ahead and visit our main page.

Learning how to calculate the odds of winning a poker hand is essential for every player. In this article we'll provide you with some techniques that you can use to calculate the odds of winning a poker hand on the fly, we'll equip you with a tool that can do that for you and provide you with some useful information that you can memorize.

Poker Odds and Outs Calculations

Let's start with the basics. With the exception of the very strong holdings like some flushes, quads etc. almost every poker hand can improve. Outs are the cards that will improve your hand if they show up at a later street. For example, if you're holding AQ on a Q34 board you can still improve to two pair or trips if you hit on of the three Aces remaining in the deck or one of the two remaining Queens.

Here are some common examples of drawing hands in no-limit hold 'em and the number of outs that they can hit to improve:

• Gutshot Straight Draw (examples: JT on Q93, 57 on 69A etc.) - 4 outs
• Open Ended Straight Draw (examples: 98 on T72, KQ on JT5) - 8 outs
• Flush Draw (examples: AhQh on 2c7h9h, 4d6d on JdKd8s) - 9 outs

Pot Odds

Pot Odds - the size of the pot in relation to the bet that you have to call to continue playing the hand. Pot Odds are usually represented in the form of a ratio (2:1, 3.2:1, 4:1 etc.). Pot odds are essentially the risk you have to take (call) to gain the reward (size of the pot).

Let's say that the size of the pot on the flop equals 2$. Our opponent is betting 1$. To continue playing we have to call 1$ and if we do we can win 2$ + 1$ = 3$. We're getting 3 to 1 pot odds. Now let's make it a bit more complex, pot size is 3,55$, opponent bets 2,33$. We have to call 2,33$ to win 3,55$ + 2,33$ (5,88$). Our pot odds are 5,88$ / 2,33$ = roughly 2.5 : 1.

Here's an easy way to do that:

Let's say our opponent is betting 2$ into 6$ pot so our pot odds equal 4:1. To convert the ratio into % add both sides of the ratio (4 + 1) and use that number as a divisor for the right part of the ratio (1 / 5 = 20%).

In the example above you need to win 20% of the time to break even when your opponent is giving your 4:1 pot odds. How often do you need to win to make the call in other popular situations? Here are some examples for you to memorize:

• 1:1 = 50%
• 2:1 = 33%
• 3:1 = 25%
• 4:1 = 20%

How To Play Winning Poker

Rule of 2 and 4

Now that you know what pot odds and odds are you can learn the quick way of calculating the percentage chance of your hand improving. It's called the rule of 2 and 4 and it's very simple:

With one more card to come (on the flop waiting for the turn or on the turn waiting for the river) multiply your outs by 2 to calculate the % chance of your hand improving. With two more cards to come (opponent all-in on the flop or any other situation when you have to call just one bet to see both turn and river) multiply your outs by 4 to calculate the % chance of your hand improving.

Example: You're holding T8 on a J24 board, you have 9 outs to hit your flush. Villain goes all in on the flop. Your % chance of improving to a flush equals 4 * 9 = 36%. Let's consider the same situation but this time flop went check/check, the turn is an Ace of clubs and your opponent is betting. Your % chance of improving in that situation would be 2 * 9 = 18%.

Hand vs. Hand All-in Pre-flop

	Example	Odds	%Odds/Equity
Pocket Pair vs. Smaller Pocket Pair	AA vs. TT	4 : 1	80%
Pocket Pair vs. Two High Cards	88 vs. AQ	1.2 : 1	55%
Pocket Pair vs. Two Low Cards	QQ vs. 67	4.9 : 1	83%
Pocket Pair vs. High Card and Low Card	JJ vs. A9	2.3 : 1	70%
Two High Cards vs. Two Low Cards	AJ vs. 78	1.9 : 1	65%
High Card and Low Card vs. Unpaired Hand	AT vs. KQ	1.2 : 1	55%

Odds of Improving Post-flop

	Example	Outs	Flop%/Odds	Turn%/Odds
Gutshot Straight Draw	JT on Q83	4	16.5%/5.1 : 1	8.7%/10.5 : 1
Two High Cards	AK on 962	6	24%/3.1 : 1	13%/6.7 : 1
Open-Ended Straight Draw	89 on A76	8	31.5%/2.2 : 1	17.4%/4.7 : 1
Flush Draw	AhQh on Jh5h8c	9	35%/1.9 : 1	19.6%/4.1 : 1
Flush Draw + High Card	As2s on 8sQs4d	12	45%/1.2 : 1	26.1%/2.8 : 1
Open-Ended Straight Flush Draw	Td9d on Jd8dKh	15	54.1%/0.85 : 1	32.6%/2.1 : 1

Poker Odds Calculator

So far you've learned about outs, odds, calculating the chance of improving your hand on the fly, and figuring out if it's profitable to make a call based on the pot size and bet size of your opponent. That's enough to get you started, but it probably doesn't answer every question you might have.

Maybe you want to figure out what's the equity of your set vs. two opponents holding a flush draw and straight draw? Maybe you want to know if your hand has any chance of winning in a 5-way family pot. Fortunately, we got you covered! You can answer those and many other questions using the Odds Calculator provided below:

Here's a quick guide on how to use the odds calculator:

• In the top right, you can choose your preferred game (you can even calculate the equity of winning a hand in games like Omaha Hi/Lo or Razz).
• Choose the number of players in the pot.
• Click on player's hole cards and assign them using the list provided at the bottom of the calculator.
• You can add cards to the board in the same way.
• Click 'Get Odds' et voila!

Now you can calculate the odds of winning any poker hand. With such a powerful tool at your disposal, you'll improve as a poker player in no-time!

Other Top Recommended Content

If you enjoyed reading this article, check out our other top recommended articles on poker mathematics!

• Poker Maths - Combinations
  
• Odds & Outs
  

Or why not try out some poker mathematics related coaching videos?

Blackjack Chance Of Winning Calculator

• Odds & Outs
  
• Bitesize Poker Concept - Implied Odds