Verdict
Call
17 outs, turn, half-pot bet
- Chance to hit by the riverone card to come36.96%
- Equity the call needs$50 into a pot of $20025.00%
- Margin over the priceyour chance minus the price+11.96 points
The price of the call
The price is 25.00% and your chance is 36.96%. You sit 11.96 points above the line, which is a wide gap, so you call.
Think of 17 outs as a running total of every card that improves you. 17 of the 46 unseen cards qualify, which is 36.96% on one card.
Worked through on a $100 pot
- Pot before the bet$100
- Bet$50
- Cost to call$50
- Final pot if you call$200
- What a hit wins$150
- What a miss costs$50
- Chance to hit by the river36.96%
- Calling is worth, on average+$23.91
- Break-even equity25.00%
- Your chance minus the price, unrounded+11.9565 points
- Outs at break-even11.50 outs
- Outs to spare, exactly+5.50 outs
Over many identical spots, with the whole pot won on every hit, the call lost on every miss and no extra betting, calling gains $23.91 on average. Hits bring in $55.43, misses cost $31.52, and the ratio is +0.478 per dollar called.
Read as odds: 1.71 : 1 against you, 3 : 1 from the pot.
A common slip is to divide the bet by the pot after the bet but before your call. That gives 33.33% instead of 25.00% and would put your margin at +3.6232 points. Using the bet over the starting pot, 50.00%, is further off and would put it at -13.0435 points.
Reverse implied odds and your margin
If some outs turned out to be shared with a better hand, you could give up 5 outs and still call. The floor is 12, at 26.09%.
The call keeps its edge until you lose $64.71 on later streets after hitting. That is 1.29 times the $50 you pay now.
| Given back later | Price with it | Your chance minus price | Value of the call | Call? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | 25.00% | +11.96 points | +$23.91 | Call |
| $10 | 26.32% | +10.64 points | +$20.22 | Call |
| $25 | 28.57% | +8.39 points | +$14.67 | Call |
| $50 | 33.33% | +3.62 points | +$5.43 | Call |
| $100 | 50.00% | -13.04 points | -$13.04 | Fold |
Flop and turn compared
Waiting a street costs 22.80 points. The flop gives 17 outs two chances to hit, 59.76%, and a call against 25.00%; the turn gives one, 36.96%.
| Street | Chance by the river | Margin over price | Value of the call | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flop, two cards to come | 59.76% | +34.7595 points | +$69.52 | Call |
| Turn, one card to come | 36.96% | +11.9565 points | +$23.91 | Call |
How the answer moves with outs
Move up or down a few outs and watch the verdict. Every extra out is worth about 2.17 points on the turn, and the price stays at 25.00%.
| Outs | By the river | Margin | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 outs | 32.61% | +7.61 points | Call |
| 16 outs | 34.78% | +9.78 points | Call |
| 17 outs, this page | 36.96% | +11.96 points | Call |
| 18 outs | 39.13% | +14.13 points | Call |
| 19 outs | 41.30% | +16.30 points | Call |
Bigger and smaller bets
Bigger bets ask for more equity while your chance stays at 36.96%. Here is every bet size against the same draw, with the row for this page marked.
17 outs stop paying at 1.42 times the pot ($141.67 on a $100 pot). The call holds up against 8 of the 12 bet sizes.
| Bet size | Equity needed | Margin | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| quarter-pot | 16.67% | +20.29 points | Call |
| third-pot | 20.00% | +16.96 points | Call |
| two-fifths-pot | 22.22% | +14.73 points | Call |
| half-pot, this page | 25.00% | +11.96 points | Call |
| two-thirds-pot | 28.57% | +8.39 points | Call |
| three-quarter-pot | 30.00% | +6.96 points | Call |
| pot-size | 33.33% | +3.62 points | Call |
| 1.25x-pot | 35.71% | +1.24 points | Call |
| 1.5x-pot | 37.50% | -0.54 points | Fold |
| 2x-pot | 40.00% | -3.04 points | Fold |
| 3x-pot | 42.86% | -5.90 points | Fold |
| 4x-pot | 44.44% | -7.49 points | Fold |
How this is computed
The hit chance comes straight from combinations. With one card left and 17 outs in 46 cards, you hit 36.96% of the time.
Four assumptions sit behind the verdict: you call the full bet, a hit wins the entire pot, no money goes in after the call, and every one of the 46 unseen cards is equally likely. The price is $50 / $200 = 25.00%. No card is taken out for what an opponent might hold.
Computed from the closed form by the GeorgeLiPoker math library.
Updated
Questions
Call or fold with 17 outs on the turn against a bet of half the pot?
Verdict: call. A half-pot bet asks for 25.00% and you have 36.96%, a margin of +11.96 points. For a $50 call into a $100 pot, with no later bets and the whole pot won on a hit, the average is +$23.91.
What count of outs clears the price of a half-pot bet on the turn?
The threshold is 12 outs. It gives 26.09%, clearing 25.00%, whereas 11 gives only 23.91%. Holding 17 puts you 5 above it, with a chance of 36.96%.
Should you use the chance on the next card or by the river?
They are one number here. With a single card to come, 36.96% is both the next-card chance and the by-the-river chance, and it gives a call against 25.00%, a margin of +11.96 points.
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