Mathematics: Flushes & Straights : Simple Pot Odds : Implied Odds : Reverse Implied Odds

• Texas Hold'em Flush
• Texas Hold'em Flush Tie Breaker
• Hold'em Flush Odds
• Texas Holdem Flush Tie
• Hold Em Flush Odds
• Texas Hold'em Flush Rules

A straight flush is a hand that contains five cards of sequential rank, all of the same suit, such as Q♥ J♥ 10♥ 9♥ 8♥ (a 'queen-high straight flush'). It ranks below five of a kind and above four of a kind.

• A free online version of Ultimate Texas Holdem. Test out your Ultimate Texas Hold'em strategy here. Practice for the casino.
• The higher flush wins the pot. And a Q-J-10-8-6 is better than a Q-J-8-7-6 so your opponent won the pot. It's the same for any other non-flush hand where the highest cards form the tie break. Then you compare the next one and the next until 5 cards are in both hands. Then if both 5 card hands are identical it's a tie.

Watch SplitSuit's video on Flushes and Flush Draws for 8 hand histories involving strategy on playing flushes in Texas Hold'em.

You are on the flop with a pretty decent flush draw. You have two hearts in your hand and there are another two on the flop.

Unfortunately, some cool cat has made a bet, putting you in a tricky situation where you have to decide whether or not it is in your best interest to call to try and make the flush, or fold and save your money.

This is a prime example of where you are going to take advantage of 'pot odds' to work out whether or not it is worth making the call.

What are pot odds? What about flushes and straights?

Basically, just forget about the name if you haven't heard about it before, there's no need to let it throw you off. Just think of 'pot odds' as the method for finding out whether chasing after a draw (like a flush or straight) is going to be profitable. If you're on your toes, you might have already been able to guess that it is generally better to chase after a draw when the bet is small rather than large, but we'll get to that in a minute...

Pot odds will tell you whether or not to call certain sized bets to try and complete your flush or straight draw.

Why use pot odds?

Because it makes you money, of course.

If you always know whether the best option is to fold or call when you're stuck with a hand like a flush draw, you are going to be saving (and winning) yourself money in the long run. On top of that, pot odds are pretty simple to work out when you get the hang of it, so it will only take a split second to work out if you should call or fold the next time you're in a sticky drawing situation. How nice is that?

How to work out whether or not to call with a flush or straight draw.

Now, this is the meat of the article. But trust me on this one, the 'working-out' part is not as difficult as you might think, so give me a chance to explain it to you before you decide to knock it on the head. So here we go...

Essentially, there are two quick and easy parts to working out pot odds. The first is to work out how likely it is that you will make your flush or straight (or whatever the hell you are chasing after), and the second is to compare the size of the bet that you are facing with the size of the pot. Then we use a little bit of mathematical magic to figure out if we should make the call.

1] Find out how likely it is to complete your draw (e.g. completing a flush draw).

All we have to do for this part is work out how many cards we have not seen, and then figure out how many of these unknown cards could make our draw and how many could not.

We can then put these numbers together to get a pretty useful ratio. So, for example, if we have a diamond flush draw on the flop we can work out...

The maths.

There are 47 cards that we do not know about (52 minus the 2 cards we have and minus the 3 cards on the flop).

• 9 of these unknown cards could complete our flush (13 diamonds in total minus 2 diamonds in our hand and the 2 diamonds on the flop).
• The other 38 cards will not complete our flush (47 unknown cards, minus the helpful 9 cards results in 38 useless ones).
• This gives us a ratio of 38:9, or scaled down... roughly 4:1.

So, at the end of all that nonsense we came out with a ratio of 4:1. This result is a pretty cool ratio, as it tells us that for every 4 times we get a useless card and miss our draw, 1 time will we get a useful card (a diamond) and complete our flush. Now all we need to do is put this figure to good use by comparing it to a similar ratio regarding the size of the bet that we are facing.

After you get your head around working out how many cards will help you and how many won't, the only tricky part is shortening a ratio like 38:9 down to something more manageable like 4:1. However, after you get used to pot odds you will just remember that things like flush draws are around 4:1 odds. To be honest, you won't even need to do this step the majority of the time, because there are very few ratios that you need to remember, so you can pick them off the top of your head and move on to step 2.

2] Compare the size of the bet to the size of the pot.

The title pretty much says it all here. Use your skills from the last step to work out a ratio for the size of the bet in comparison to the size of the pot. Just put the total pot size (our opponent's bet + the original pot) first in the ratio, and the bet size second. Here are a few quick examples for you...

• $20 bet into a $100 pot = 120:20 = 6:1
• $0.25 bet creating a total pot size of $1 = 1:0.25 = 4:1
• $40 bet creating a total pot size of $100 = 100:40 = 2.5:1

That should be enough to give you an idea of how to do the second step. In the interest of this example, I am going to say that our opponent (with a $200 stack) has bet $20 in to a $80 pot, giving us odds of 5:1 ($100:$20). This is going to come in very handy in the next step.

This odds calculation step is very simple, and the only tricky part is getting the big ratios down into more manageable ones. However, this gets a lot easier after a bit of practice, so there's no need to give up just yet if you're not fluent when it comes to working with ratios after the first 5 seconds. Give yourself a chance!

To speed up your pot odds calculations during play, try using the handy (and free) SPOC program.

3] Compare these two ratios.

Now then, we know how likely it is that we are going to complete our draw, and we have worked out our odds from the pot (pot odds, get it? It's just like magic I know.). All we have to do now is put these two ratios side to side and compare them...

• 5:1 pot odds
• 4:1 odds of completing our draw on the next card

The pot odds in this case are bigger than the odds of completing our draw, which means that we will be making more money in the long run for every time we hit according to these odds. Therefore we should CALL because we will win enough to make up for the times that we miss and lose our money.

If that doesn't make total sense, then just stick to these hard and fast rules if it makes things easier:

If your pot odds are bigger than your chances of hitting - CALL
If your pot odds are smaller than your chances of hitting - FOLD

So just think of bigger being better when it comes to pot odds. Furthermore, if you can remember back to the start of the article when we had the idea that calling smaller bets is better, you will be able to work out that small bets give you bigger pot odds - makes sense right? It really comes together quite beautifully after you get your head around it.

What if there are two cards to come?

In this article I have shown you how to work out pot odds for the next card only. However, when you are on the flop there are actually 2 cards to come, so shouldn't you work out the odds for improving to make the best hand over the next 2 cards instead of 1?

No, actually.

Even if there are 2 cards to come (i.e. you're on the flop), you should still only work out the odds of improving your hand for the next card only.

The reason for this is that if you work using odds for improving over two cards, you need to assume that you won't be paying any more money on the turn to see the river. Seeing as you cannot be sure of this (it's quite unlikely in most cases), you should work out your pot odds for the turn and river individually. This will save you from paying more money than you should to complete your draw.

I discuss this important principle in a little more detail on my page about the rule of 2 and 4 for pot odds. It's also one of the mistakes poker players make when using odds.

Note: The only time you use odds for 2 cards to come combined is when your opponent in all-in on the flop. In almost every other case, you take it one card at a time.

Playing flush and straight draws overview.

I really tried hard to keep this article as short as possible, but then again I didn't want to make it vague and hazy so that you had no idea about what was going on. I'm hoping that after your first read-through that you will have a rough idea about how to work out when you should call or fold when on a flush or straight draw, but I am sure that it will take you another look over or two before it really starts to sink in. So I advise that you read over it again at least once.

The best way to get to grips with pot odds is to actually start working them out for yourself and trying them out in an actual game. It is all well and good reading about it and thinking that you know how to use them, but the true knowledge of pot odds comes from getting your hands dirty and putting your mind to work at the poker tables.

It honestly isn't that tough to use pot odds in your game, as it will take less than a session or two before you can use them comfortably during play. So trust me on this one, it is going to be well worth your while to spend a little time learning how to use pot odds, in return for always knowing whether to call or fold when you are on a draw. It will take a load off your mind and put more money in your pocket.

To help you out when it comes to your calculations, take a look at the article on simple pot odds. It should make it all a lot less daunting.

Go back to the sublime Texas Hold'em guide.

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Table Of Contents

• Casino Hold’em is a variant of Poker that you play against the house
• To play it right, you need to know Casino Hold’em rules and strategy
• Read about it all in this article (and register to play Casino Hold’em)

Poker is one of the most challenging games in the world because you play it against other players.

No matter how experienced they are (or not), that requires not only a good strategy but also an ability to read people.

Why Play Casino Hold’em?

Casino Hold’em is a relatively new game in gambling history. It dates back to the 90s but it was quick to earn its respectable place at the Casinos. Land-based and online alike.

Why?

There are a couple of reasons.

First, it’s the best game to play if you are learning Poker. Especially, Texas Hold’em game.

The rules are similar and the hand ranking is exactly the same. And you don’t need to panic about needing to beat two or more people. You only play with the house.

You don’t need to be at a Poker room or a Casino, you don’t need to find people to play with - a laptop or a phone will be just fine.

And what’s even better (if you’re a terrible liar, at least) - you don’t need to bluff your way out of a bad hand.

Bluffing won’t work here - the dealer plays until the end.

The game may disconnect if you take an hour to make a choice but it should be fine if you leave it for a minute or so.

How to Play Casino Hold’em Online?

Have you ever thought of how Poker is played against the dealer? Open a Casino Hold’em game online and you'll see for yourself.

Casino Hold’em rules are similar to the ones of Texas Hold’em Poker. Except you don’t play against other players. Your goal is to beat the dealer. Like in most Casino games.

Thus, many players simply call it a Casino-style Texas Hold’em Poker. But generally, you will find it online and offline as Casino Hold’em.

Casino Hold’em Rules

Casino Hold’em games include the standard 52-card deck.

Texas Hold'em Flush

You start playing by making an ante bet. It’s a forced wager you need to make before the flop.

You can also make a side bet. In Casino Hold’em it’s known as AA (Bonus) bet.

Once you set your wagers, both you and the dealer get two hole cards each.

When you play Casino Hold’em online, you play alone. In some multi-hand versions, you can play two or three hands at the same time.

When you play at a brick-and-mortar Casino, the number of players can vary. Players come and go.

Once the players’ cards are dealt, the flop with community cards follows.

If you’re not familiar with Poker terms, the flop is the first three cards that are dealt face up on the table.

These cards are called community cards because all the players and the dealer can use them to make a five-card hand with the highest rank.

And that’s what you need to do if you want to win.

Once you see the flop, you have two options:

Texas Hold'em Flush Tie Breaker

• to call - to bet and continue playing
• to fold - to discard your hand and wait for another round

Calling requires a bet that’s twice the size of your ante. But you can’t win if you don’t call.

When you fold online, the game skips to the next bet without revealing the remaining cards or the dealer’s cards.

You lose, the house wins.

When you call, the remaining two community cards are dealt.

Then the dealer’s cards go face up and you see the outcome of the game - who has a better hand and takes home the pot.

Casino Hold’em Hand Ranking

From the highest to the lowest, Casino Hold’em hands go like this:

Royal Flush is the best possible hand you can have when you combine your hand with the community cards. Whereas a pair of Aces is the best hole cards you can get.

But don’t you worry if that’s not exactly what you have in your hand.

There’s more to Casino Hold’em than the best possible cards.

Casino Hold’em Outcomes and Payouts

As there are three bets in the game (ante, raise, and AA), you win each bet under certain conditions.

Ante Bet

You win ante bet if your hand beats the dealer’s hand.

You receive one of the following payouts, based on where does your hand rank:

Raise Bet

In order to win most, not only you have to have a good hand but the dealer has to have a decent hand, too.

In Poker terms, the dealer needs to qualify. In the game of Casino Hold’em the dealer qualifies with a Pair of Fours or better.

If your hand beats the dealer’s but the dealer’s hand doesn’t qualify - the raise bet is a push - you get your wager back but you don’t win.

Thus, you win the raise bet only if the dealer qualifies and you beat their hand. When that happens, the raise bet pays 1 to 1.

Casino Hold’em outcomes in a nutshell:

AA (Bonus) Bet

Unlike ante and raise bets, AA bonus bet is not related to your hand beating the dealer’s or the dealer’s hand qualifying.

It’s considering only your hand the flop (first three community cards).

If during this stage your hand is a Pair of Aces or better, you win AA bet. The payouts are pretty sweet, too:

You know whether you win AA bet before you know the final outcome of the game.

No matter what are the remaining community cards, you can only win AA bet if your hand is a Pair of Aces or better during the flop.

Live Casino Hold’em

Like many other Casino games, you can also play Casino Hold’em live.

It means you will still be playing at an online Casino but not against the random number generator.

A real dealer will be dealing your cards and talking to you via a computer or a smartphone screen in the real time.

That’s a good alternative if you need human contact when playing Casino games online.

However, remember: the pace of live dealer games is a lot faster in comparison to when you play against the online game.

Casino Hold’em Strategy

Approximately, Casino Hold’em has a house edge of up to 2.5 percent. That’s not the best odds at a Casino.

But not the worst ones either.

It’s more difficult to come up with a simple basic strategy that games like Blackjack or Pontoon have.

But not everything is lost when playing online.

Yes, calculating the probability whether you will get favorable cards after the flop or not would be a pain in the a*s. But it’s nothing for a computer.

And you are already on one!

Open a Casino Hold’em Strategy calculator in a separate window, type in what cards you have and what community cards are dealt. The computer will advise you whether you should call (raise) or fold.

Hold'em Flush Odds

I have to admit, it won’t be that easy to switch between tabs on a smartphone. And to take time to check every hand will be impossible if you play Casino Hold’em live.

But if you use it frequently enough when playing online, you will start noticing the probability of some cards and have a better feeling when to call or fold.

Where to Play Casino Hold’em?

Once you know how to play Casino Hold’em, you need to know where.

You can consider sites to play for free (for example, here). Many Casino sites will let you practice the game.

But when you want to play for money, you need to look further.

You need a place that’s a) trustworthy (safe and secure, licensed and regulated), b) has a Casino Hold’em game in their collection, and c) is available at your location.

Texas Holdem Flush Tie

So, how about this online Casino?

It does have both Casino Hold’em online and Live games. The minimum bets start at $1 and you can bet up to $100 per round.

Plus, if you join this Casino as a new player, you get a deposit match bonus and extra free spins!

Hold Em Flush Odds

That’s a real bargain for anyone who likes playing Casino games.

Texas Hold'em Flush Rules