Practical Poker Lessons on Calculating Pot Size
We have to know how much is in the pot to see whether it is worth the betting risks we're going to make. That's how important calculating pot size is. But sadly, some players fail to accurately size up the pot and sometimes end up risking big for nothing.
Most aggressive players get caught up in the play strategies that they fail to monitor the bet patterns of their opponents and thus fail to monitor pot growth. They have strong hand plays but weak in calculating pot size. We should at least know some basic principles in calculating pot size. Like, for instance, should we count our own money in the current pot size?
We should remember this: We should count the bet or money we ourselves have put in the pot from before. For instance, if we call the big blind which is $4 our $4 is already in the pot; we count that as already part of the pot. When calculating pot size we include our own call bet to the blind and see $8. Some players would only see $4 and not count their bet.
The ruling is that the moment we put our money in the middle of the table it ceases to be part of our money or stack. Count it as part of the pot already. This is an accurate way of calculating pot size. But if we PLAN to put in another $10 but haven't actually placed it yet as a bet it's not yet part of the pot. If we still hold the bet we should not count it as part of the pot until we release it and place on the table as a bet.
If player 1 bets $10 post flop and we call it so that some players fold and then Player 1 bets $20 at the turn, how much do we have in the pot if there was $16 in the pot pre-flop? The right way of calculating pot size here is that the pot had $16 pre-flop, $20 post flop, and $20 at the turn. We include the $10 we placed at post flop. Why? Because it is now part of the middle table bet.
These simple principles above are worth remembering when playing and betting in a game. We should see if the money in the pot is worth the risks we would take. We should accurately figure out what is in the pot and what is still forth coming. This is properly calculating pot size.