Reading a pot odds chart is a different skill from calculating pot odds under time pressure. These ten drills close that gap. Each one gives you a pot size and a bet; your job is to produce the required equity before you look at the answer.

Use abstract units throughout. No drill assumes a stake level, a room or a real hand.

The formula you need

Required equity is the call amount divided by the pot after your call:

required equity = call / (pot before the bet + 2 × call)

The denominator grows by twice the bet because your call adds to the pot and the opponent’s bet added to it once already. If the pot was 100 and the bet is 50, the pot you would be calling into is 200, so 50 divided by 200 is 25 percent.

For the reasoning behind that denominator, see how to calculate pot odds, or what pot odds mean if you want the concept before the drills.

Drills

Cover the answer column. Work each drill out on paper first.

# Pot before bet Opponent bets Your answer
1 100 50
2 150 100
3 200 200
4 80 60
5 300 100
6 100 150
7 50 100
8 240 120
9 90 60
10 60 60

Answers

# Pot Bet Pot after your call Required equity Exact fraction
1 100 50 200 25.00% 1/4
2 150 100 350 28.57% 2/7
3 200 200 600 33.33% 1/3
4 80 60 200 30.00% 3/10
5 300 100 500 20.00% 1/5
6 100 150 400 37.50% 3/8
7 50 100 250 40.00% 2/5
8 240 120 480 25.00% 1/4
9 90 60 210 28.57% 2/7
10 60 60 180 33.33% 1/3

What the drills teach

Drills 1 and 8 have the same answer despite different pot sizes, because both are half pot bets. That is the first lesson: the required equity depends on the bet size relative to the pot, not on the absolute amounts.

Drills 3 and 10 are both full pot bets and both return 33.33 percent. Drills 2 and 9 are both two-thirds pot and both return 28.57 percent. Once you have worked a few of these, the fraction starts attaching itself to the bet size rather than to the numbers on the table, which is what makes the calculation fast enough to use in a hand.

Drill 7 is the one people get wrong. A 100 bet into a 50 pot is a 2x pot overbet, and the price is 40 percent, not 50 or 66. The reflex is to treat a bet double the pot as needing double the equity of a half pot bet, which would be 50 percent. The correct figure is lower, because your call enlarges the pot you are competing for.

Practice pattern

Work five drills a day for a week rather than all ten at once. The aim is not to get fast at arithmetic; the aim is to recognise the bet size and recall its price without calculating at all.

Once 1/2 pot maps to 25 percent and 1x pot maps to 33.33 percent in your head, you can skip the division during a hand and spend that attention on reading the opponent.

For the full set of prices in one place, see the pot odds chart.