So what is meant by implied odds? Basically it is taking the notion of pot odds one step further by calculating if any more of your opponent’s money might go into the pot if things go your way. This means that the science of calculating implied odds is not an exact one as it requires you to estimate what your opponent may or may not do.

Let’s have a look at an example. Say that I am holding A, K hearts and the board reads 2(h), 4(d), 8(h), J (d). You are on the button (so you have position in this pot) and it is down to heads up play with you and another player. There is $200 in the pot and your opponent comes out and bets $200. You start to evaluate the hand. Now you know that if any heart comes, apart from the 4 hearts or the J of hearts (which would pair the board), then you will have the nuts. So you know you have seven of the remaining 46 cards that will be certain winners.

Now if you were talking pot odds you would ask yourself what would happen if the other two hearts played. You would also asses if an A or K on the river would give you a winning hand. Let’s assume here that we think our opponent is well and truly in front but we don’t have him on a set, KK, AA or AJ. This would give us another eight outs, totalling 15 winners out of 46 cards. This means that in pot odds we would need to be getting 2/1 about our money to make the call. So in this case, on pure pot odds we would have to put in $200 to win $400. This is a borderline call especially considering that we know that our opponent is in front but we have considered him being weaker than he may be.

If we now take implied odds into consideration then it makes this a definite call or even a big raising opportunity. Let’s assume that we have $700 left sitting in front of us and our opponent has over $1000. For the implied odds let us calculate what we might win or lose in this pot after the river card hits the table. We know that unless we hit an A or K or heart we are behind. So if we were to call this hand then we would fold to a bet on the river. If we hit our card however then there is a good chance that we might still win more of his money by betting or raising on the river. This possibility of making more money in a future betting round is the principle of implied odds.
This is not a simple concept but it is definitely something that you should study further if you want to take your poker game to the next level.