Definition
Plain language
In poker, comparing how much you'd have to put in against how much you could win, to decide whether a call is worth it.
As stated in the literature
The ratio of the bet a player must call to the total pot size, used to judge whether a call is profitable given a hand's chance of improving; one of several simultaneously-relevant principles in the decision-binding problem.
Why it matters: It matters because weighing the cost of a call against the potential payoff is one of several principles a poker agent must juggle at once.
For example, if calling a bet costs you $10 to win a $90 pot, your pot odds tell you the call pays off whenever your hand wins more than one time in ten.
Heard on the show
“The pot odds are telling you another.”Episode 100 — How a Prompt Wrapper Lets a Frontier Model Play Poker Like an Expert