Count your outs, know your chances
An out is a card that turns your hand into the winner. Count them, multiply, and you know how often you'll get there.
What a draw is
A draw is a hand that isn't good enough to win yet, but will be if the right card comes. The cards that would do it are your outs. If you hold two hearts and the flop brings two more, any of the nine hearts left in the deck gives you a flush. That is a flush draw with nine outs.
These are the draws you will see every night, each with an example. The number of outs is the thing to remember.
The rule of 2 and 4
After the flop there are two more cards to come: the turn, then the river. On the flop there are 47 cards you can't see, and on the turn 46, so each out is worth a little over 2% for each card still to come. That gives a shortcut you can do in your head.
two cards to come ≈ outs × 4Use ×4 only when you will see both cards for one price, which usually means someone is all-in on the flop. If there may be another bet on the turn, use ×2 and decide again on the next street.
Take the flush draw: 9 outs × 2 = about 18% to hit on the next card, and 9 × 4 = about 36% to hit by the river. The table shows the exact figures next to the shortcut. The ×4 shortcut runs high once you have more than eight outs. A simple fix is to subtract the number of outs above eight: with 15 outs, 60 − 7 = 53%, and the exact figure is 54.1%.
| Draw | Outs | Hits on the turn | Hits on the river | Hits by the river | Outs × 4 |
|---|
"Hits by the river" means you see both cards. Exact figures: outs ÷ 47 on the turn, outs ÷ 46 on the river, and 1 − (47−outs)(46−outs) ÷ (47×46) for both.
Not every out is a clean out
Count an out only if it wins the hand. Say you hold on a flop of . Any ten or five makes your straight, which is eight cards. But the ten of hearts and five of hearts also put a third heart on the board, and anyone holding two hearts now has a flush that beats you. Count six outs there, not eight. In the same way, an overcard is only an out if pairing it beats what your opponent has. When in doubt, count fewer.
Converting odds and percentages
Players quote odds "against". A flush draw with one card to come is about 4-to-1 against: four misses for every hit. To turn odds into a percentage, divide one by the sum.
2-to-1 against = 1 ÷ (2 + 1) = 33%
Numbers worth memorising
| Event | Chance | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Dealt any pocket pair | 5.9% | 1 in 17 |
| Dealt pocket aces | 0.45% | 1 in 221 |
| Pocket pair flops a set or better | 11.8% | 1 in 8.5 |
| Two unpaired cards pair at least one on the flop | 32.4% | 1 in 3 |
| Two suited cards flop a flush draw | 10.9% | 1 in 9 |
| Two suited cards flop a made flush | 0.84% | 1 in 119 |
The third row explains why small pairs need a cheap price and deep stacks. You miss the flop about seven times in eight, so the one time you hit has to pay for the rest.
Drill: count the outs
Ten boardsDrill: outs to percent
Within 3 points counts- Flush draw 9 outs, open-ended straight draw 8, gutshot 4.
- Outs × 2 for the next card. Outs × 4 only when all the money is in.
- Throw away outs that might make someone else a better hand.