OK guys I am a member for years and I've been reading a lot of stuff and learning on forums and strategy articles. This is a first time I have something to share so hear me out.
All over internet including pokerstrategy article and even daniel negreanu master class is following story of pot odds. If there is pot of 500 and there is a bet of 200 so you need to pay 200 to win a pot of 500+200=700. You are getting 200/700 pot odds right ? WRONG. This is basic mathematics that are simply not correct and you can find it everywhere. Actual proper mathematics is 200/900 so your call is also included in the pot for odds.
Here is a simple example so let say pot is 50 on the turn. Your opponent bet 50 so whole pot. So you have to pay 50 to win 100. First time you lose you are -50, second time you lose you are -100 third time you win you are +100 so after 2 times losing and 1 winning you are break even. So your pot odds to start with are 50/150(50+50+50) = 33% not 50/100(50+50) = 50% so your call should also be included in the calculation. That is all. Thank you for reading hope this will be helpful to someone and not start some crazy discussion.
Hotkey / utility tools can be configured to calculate pot odds and display them in terms of required equities (%s) anyway, so the discussion of mental arithmetic is obsolete for most online poker grinders, but it still applies to live poker and to those sites that prohibit all third-party tools (like Unibet and Natural8), and I agree, the terminology would be less confusing if it were customary to include the call into the odds denominator.
Sure. And of course it does not mean anything if you don't know how to calculate your equity and to compare it with you pot odds. But for beginner just digging into these stuff getting a bad starting point with wrong calculation of pot odds can be very confusing. Here there is a good article with good explanation of odds and equity and outs but still pot odds are calculated without your call so that gives you illusion that you have better odds than you really do. This is an article I was referring to https://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/various-poker/basics-odds-and-outs/
but still pot odds are calculated without your call so that gives you illusion that you have better odds than you really do.
Wrong. If you calculate your pot odds without the call you'll get an illusion for worse odds, not better. Example:
Pot 2 bet 1 The right calulation will be 1/4, or I must win 1 in 4 times or 25% if you want. The wrong way gives me 1/3, or I can call less often, or I will have an illusion that I have much worse pot odds, that I really do.