One of the things that separates poker from other games of chance is our ability to select the odds under which we are willing to wager money. One can encourage action by providing the appropriate odds for a call, as one can also discourage action by ‘pricing someone out’ of a pot. However, there seems to be a great misconception as to what true odds are and how they are calculated.

Let’s look at one hand, for example, and see if we agree on how many outs a particular player has. The player is holding K♥-Q♥ on a flop of J♥-10♥-3♦.