This can not be better illustrated than through an example and that is exactly what is going to be done here.
Lets say you are playing online holdem and you have a hand of 8, 9 suited in a game with the small blind of $3 and the big blind of $6. Then you call the raise that came from one player and all the other players do that also. There are six players in total in the poker room. So the pot added up to $36 or more from now.
In the flop, the cards you can see are Js , 7h, and 4h.
Now, a difficult decision lies ahead of you. Once you have seen the flop you realize that you have a gutshot to a nuts straight because you are now missing only a 10 from hitting that hand. The idea is to decide whether it is worth it to draw for the nuts or not.
The player in first position bets and the following two players that are stitted before you call. So the pot became somewhere around $45. if you are looking after that gutshot straight then you have to consider the fact that it has 4 outs that are the card you are missing, the 10 in this example. 4 cards out of the total of 47 cards left in the deck. So odds are 4:47. On the river the cards in the deck decrease...