Poker Outs
- Poker odds calculate the chances of you holding a winning hand. The poker odds calculators on CardPlayer.com let you run any scenario that you see at the poker table, see your odds and outs,.
- In a poker game with more than one betting round, an out is any unseen card that, if drawn, will improve a player's hand to one that is likely to win. Knowing the number of outs a player has is an important part.
- You have nine outs. Example – Straight Draw “Open-ended” You have J♠ 10♠. The flop is 6♣ Q♥ K♦ Any ace or nine will complete your straight. This is known as an “open-ended” straight draw.
How Many Outs is a poker skill game to improve your ability to quickly identify outs in a poker hand. Each round, you are presented with a poker situation with only the river card remaining to be dealt. Basic Odds and Outs If you ever wanted to know some of the odds and probabilities of Texas hold'em poker, from the chances of flopping a flush (0.8%) or set (12%) to the odds of an overcard coming.
If you want to become a solid, highly profitable poker player, you first need to start your education with the basics, or, outs and pot odds. Poker outs and pot odds are easy to learn. This article should get you off to a fast start. Below I will be teaching you exactly what outs and pot odds are, how to figure out how much you have and where you’ll use the knowledge.
By definition, poker outs are the cards left in the deck that can improve your hand.
For example, say you have Ak of hearts on a flop of Q-T-2 rainbow. An ace or king will improve your hand to one pair, and a J will improve your hand to a straight. An ace, king and jack are your “outs.”
What we need to know is how many outs we have, which is very easy. You know that there are 4 of each card in a 52-card deck and we don’t count the cards in our hand. So we know we have 4 jacks, 3 aces and 3 kings — 10 outs.
Note:Be sure not to double count your outs. For example, an out might improve your hand to a flush, but the same card could also improve your hand to a straight. This is still only one out, not two.
A common question that beginners ask is, what about the cards that your opponent’s are holding or that might improve their hand. Good question. However, unless you know that your opponent has a specific card or hand, I wouldn’t worry about it. Besides, we’re not trying to be perfect, but just as close as possible.
Once you know how many outs you have, the next step is to turn these into a percentage. We’ll later compare this percentage to our pot odds to determine if we’re getting a good enough price to call an all-in, or to draw to a better hand. There are a couple of ways that you can do this:
- The 2 4 Rule. With the 2 4 rule, all you do is multiply the number of outs you have by 2 if you want to know how you’ll improve over one street, and by 4 over two streets. So in our case, from the flop to the turn we’ll improve about 20% of the time, and 40% of the time from the flop to the river. This process isn’t exact, but it’s very close.
- Manually. If you want to use the manual method, what you do is subtract the number of cards you can see (your hand plus the flop) from the number of cards in the deck (52-5=47). Then take the number of cards left in the deck and subtract your outs. Then divide that number by your number of outs — (47-10) / 10 = 3.7. You’ll be left with 3.7 (to 1), or, 21%. About the same as our x2 rule.
I recommend sticking to the 2 4 rule since it’s much faster than doing it manually. Speed will be a factor since you’ll also need to figure out your pot odds before making a decision about what to do with your hand.
Pot Odds: Are You Making Profitable Plays?
Pot odds is the amount of money in the pot compared to how much you need to invest to win it. In other words, if there is 100 chips in the pot and you have to invest 100 chips to win it, you’d be getting 100 chips for 100 chips, or 1:1.
Pot odds are important because when compared to your outs (or your opponent’s range), you’ll be able to determine whether calling (or shoving) is a profitable play or not. I’ll give an example to show you what I mean.
Say I’m in the same situation as above — I have Aks on a Q-T-2 rainbow flop. The blinds are 100/200 and the pot is 1100 on the flop. My opponent is first to act and bets 750. My goal now is to figure out my pot odds so that I can figure out if I can call and draw, or if I need to fold.
To figure this out, what I do first is take the 1100 in the pot and divide it by the amount I need to call (1100/750). What we get is 1.5. This is written out like 1.5 to 1 or 1.5:1. It’s like saying that for every $1 we invest, we stand to win $1.50.
The next step is to turn this into a percentage. So I take my investment and divide it by the total amount of money in the pot — 1 / 2.5. This tells us that my pot odds are 40%.
All that’s left now is to compare the percentages. As long as my pot odds (percentage) are smaller than the odds of hitting my hand, then the call is profitable. The wider the margin between the two, the more profitable it is. In my case, calling here would not be profitable over one street, and breakeven over two streets. The correct play would be to fold.
That’s all there is to it. Easy, right? If you find that you’re having a difficult time figuring out your outs and odds while playing, there are numerous outs and pot odds charts available online. They should help you out until you have your outs and odds memorized.
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Most new poker players tend to start out playing poker the same way. They play too many starting hands, which only gets them into trouble because these hands turn into lucrative drawing hands on the flop. There is no way a new player is turning down the possibility of hitting one of 4 outs to complete their gut-shot straight draw, so they are more than happy to pay to chase. Most times often than not, they miss their draw and waste many chips in the process that could have been better used in more ideal spots.
If only new players had a firm understanding of poker outs and pot odds before playing poker for the first time.
Poker Outs
'Outs' in poker refers to the cards that are left in the deck that can better a poker hand. For example, if you had A-K for hole cards and the flop was 7-10-J, then any queen would be an 'out' to a straight and the remaining aces and kings would be 'outs' to make a pair or better. You would simply count the remaining cards in the deck that can help you, and that is the amount of 'outs,' or help, you have to better your hand. So, in our example above, you would have 4 queens, 3 aces and 3 kings left in the deck for 10 outs.
Before going any further, we should answer a commonly asked question. 'How do you know all of those outs are available?'
Well, you don't. It is impossible to know exactly how many of the cards you need are actually 'live' in the deck or how many are 'dead' in the hands of your opponents. Also, it is very well possible that some of the outs that you think you have, are really not outs that will better your hand enough for you to win. When you subtract these outs from your total amount of outs, this is referred to as 'discounting outs' which should only be done if you have a history on your opponents and just know for a fact that these outs are not available. As a rule of thumb, count all outs.
So, why are outs important? Outs are important because you need to know how likely it is that you will better your hand on later streets. To do this, you will take your outs and turn them into odds.
Turning outs into odds is very simple to do. All you have to do is take the amount of outs you have and compare that to the amount of unseen cards that are left in the deck. So, using our example above, if you had A-K on a 7-10-J board and you needed a queen for a straight, you would have 4 outs. You have seen the flop and your hole cards for a total of 5 cards seen out of 52 which leaves 47 unseen cards. Then take your unseen cards and outs and divide those both by the number of outs you have to calculate your odds (47/4) (4/4). This would equal 11.75:1 but to make things easier for you just round up to 12 to 1.
Again, a similar question to the one above arises. '47 unseen cards? What about all the cards dealt to my opponent's?'
To make things easier for yourself, only use the cards you can see. So, when figuring odds the flop will always have 47 unseen cards and 46 on the turn. Just remember that these are estimates to help you make a more educated decision. It is not precise by any means.
Now, before we move on to pot odds and how outs and pot odds work together, there is one common mistake to discuss that you want to be sure to avoid. In some cases, you may be drawing to a hand that can result in a flush, straight or straight flush. When counting your outs here, you will want to be sure to only count outs that help both hands only once. So for example, if you had 9c-8c and the board was 5c-6c-Kh, you will want to be sure to only count the 7c once for both straight and flush outs. Many people would make the mistake of counting 4 outs for the straight (7's) and then 9 flush cards for 13 outs. But, the 7 was already counted in the flush outs so you have 9 flush cards and 3 non-flush 7's that will better your hand for only 12 outs. Not a huge difference, but this will affect your odds which of course can affect your decisions.
Poker Pot Odds
Pot odds are much easier to calculate and are equally important as calculating poker outs. Quite simply, pot odds are the return that you are receiving in relation to what you have to spend to get that return.
For example, if there were $800 in the pot and your opponent bet $200, the pot would now be $1,000 and for you to potentially win this pot, you would have to invest $200. This would translate into $1,000 to $200 ($1,000:$200) or when simplified, 5 to 1 (5:1). As you can probably see, pot odds are very easy to calculate and necessary to understand so that they can be compared with your poker outs/odds to make an educated decision.
Poker Outs Quiz
How are Pot Odds and Poker Outs used together?
Pot odds and Poker Outs are used together so that players can figure out their expected value. Now, expected value is an article all on it's own but in a nutshell, expected value will tell you whether the play you are making has a positive or negative outcome over the an extended period of time.
Another way to look at it is to ask yourself, 'Am I getting enough money (pot odds) to offset the risk of drawing to a better hand (outs/odds)?'
For example, 5:1 odds are not sufficient to chase our example above which carries odds of 12:1. This is because you will pay $200 13 times (12:1 = 12+1) and lose that $200 12 times (12:1 = -12x$200) for a loss of -$2,400 and win once and gain only $1,000. When added together, this play would leave you -$1,400 in the hole (-$2,400+$1,000).
On another note, pot odds can be used with other odds as well. For example, if you hold a small pocket pair, the odds of flopping a set are 8:1. If you are getting better than 8:1 pot odds pre-flop, then you are mathematically correct in set mining. If you were getting less, then it is mathematically incorrect to do so and you should fold.
Poker Outs Percentage
Poker Outs and Pot Odds
Poker Outs
Having an understanding of outs and pot odds is essential for a player to understand simply because a player can then make a decision based on how likely it is they will improve to a better hand in relation to how much they hope to receive for the risk in attempting to do so. In short, this translates into understanding how to chase draws and more importantly, when not to chase them.