Poker Cheat Sheet: The Numbers You Need at the Table, on One Page
A good poker cheat sheet fits on one page and answers the three questions you ask every hand: is my hand strong, how often do I need to win to call, and how likely am I to hit my draw. Here they are, with exact numbers computed by this site. The calculator right below gives you the required equity for any bet.
How much equity do you need to call?
To call a bet, you need to win at least the share of the final pot that you put in. The five most common bet sizes:
| Opponent's bet | Equity needed to call |
|---|---|
| A third of the pot | 20% |
| Half the pot | 25% |
| Three quarters of the pot | 30% |
| Pot | 33.3% |
| Twice the pot | 40% |
The full calculation is in the pot odds and expected value guide.
Your outs and your odds of hitting
An out is a card that completes your draw. The four most common draws, with an example and the exact odds:
| Draw | Example | Outs | Flop to river | Turn to river |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flush draw | K♥J♥ on 9♥ 5♥ 2♠ | 9 | 35% | 19.6% |
| Open-ended straight draw | 9♠8♦ on 7♣ 6♥ 2♠ | 8 | 31.5% | 17.4% |
| Gutshot | 9♠8♦ on J♣ 7♥ 2♠ | 4 | 16.5% | 8.7% |
| Flush and straight draw | 9♥8♥ on 7♥ 6♥ 2♠ | 15 | 54.1% | 32.6% |
The calculator also gives your chance of hitting on the turn, seen from the flop: 19.1% with 9 outs (9 cards out of 47). The table starts from the turn instead (9 out of 46, or 19.6%): two different questions, two correct numbers.
The table shortcut is the rule of 2 and 4: multiply your outs by 4 on the flop (two cards to come) and by 2 on the turn. On the flop, ×4 stays within 1 point of the exact odds up to 8 outs, then overstates more and more: 15 outs give 60% by the rule and 54.1% in reality. On the turn, ×2 comes out slightly low. For every case, see the poker odds chart and the guide to poker outs.
Hand rankings
From strongest to weakest:
- Royal flush (A‑K‑Q‑J-10 of the same suit)
- Straight flush
- Four of a kind
- Full house
- Flush
- Straight
- Three of a kind
- Two pair
- One pair
- High card
Ties and the classic traps (a flush beats a straight, the kicker breaks the tie between two identical pairs) are in poker hand rankings.
Positions at a 6‑max table
In preflop order: UTG, hijack (HJ), cutoff (CO), button (BTN), small blind (SB), big blind (BB). The later you act, the more you see before deciding, and the more hands you can play. The button acts last after the flop: it is the best seat at the table. More in poker positions.
Short stacks: shove or fold
With 10 big blinds or fewer, the main question is no longer "how much do I raise?" but "shove or fold?". Heads-up, from the small blind at 10 big blinds, the Nash equilibrium shoves 58.3% of hands. The full grid, from 2 to 20 big blinds, is in the push/fold chart.
The common mistake: reading the sheet without checking the price
Your odds of hitting mean nothing on their own: a flush draw that hits 19.6% of the time from the turn to the river is close to break-even against a third-pot bet (20% needed) but far short against a pot-sized bet (33.3% needed). Always compare both columns. What can rescue the call is what you win later when you hit: that is what implied odds measure.
Sources
- Required equity: this site's potOdds (your call as a share of the final pot), for bets of 1/3, 1/2, 3/4, 1 and 2 times the pot.
- Outs: recounted card by card on each example; exact probabilities over 47 then 46 unseen cards.
- Push/fold: heads-up chart computed by this site (Nash equilibrium, small blind against big blind).