Counting and Using Outs in Hold'em

For the purposes of this discussion, there are three situations that you may face once you have seen the flop: 1) you have nothing, and no realistic hope of making a worthwhile hand on the turn or river 2) you have a great hand which you are sure is currently best, and which will probably still be best at a showdown 3) your hand may or may not currently be the best hand, but there are cards that could come on the turn or river that will probably give you the winner. While that description is a bit simplistic, the purpose of this article is to discuss that third situation, where you think you need to hit one, or more, good cards in order for you to make a winner. We will discuss that situation in detail, and not talk about the other situations at all. Those are topics for future articles. First of all, what are outs? Outs are cards that will improve your hand if they show up. For instance, if your first 2 cards are a Nine and a Ten, and on the flop there is an Ace, Six and a Seven, you don't have much of a hand. However, if an Eight is turned up on the turn or river, you will have a straight, in this case the nut (best) straight and, assuming no flush possibility, probably the winning hand. There are four Eights in the deck, any of which will make your straight, so you have 4 outs. Outs vary in value however, depending on the situation. If you started with the Two of clubs and Three of spades, and the flop contained the Ten of hearts, Jack of hearts and Queen of hearts, the remaining Twos and Threes in the deck may technically be outs, but they are really not much use. In order to determine the value of your outs, you need to do a few things. First you must identify your outs, the cards that will improve your hand. Next, you must adjust the value of some of those outs, based on the situation, the cards on the board, your position, and the players still in the pot. These first two steps combined are referred to as 'Counting your Outs'. You need to then assign some value to your outs, which you can use for the next step, comparing to the pot and implied odds, and the final step, deciding how to act. Counting your outs can be a little tricky, because you don't want to miss any, or count any twice. As well, if you undervalue you outs, you will think that your hand is weaker than it actually is, while if you over value your outs, you will think that your hand is stronger than it actually is. This can lead to folding when you should have called or raised, and calling or raising when you should have folded. First, look at your cards and the cards on board, and ask yourself 'what cards will improve my hand'. If you have 2 over-cards, both of your cards are higher than those on board, there will be 6 cards that will improve your hand to top pair. For instance, if you have a King and a Queen, and the highest card on board is a Ten, any one of the 3 Queens or 3 Kings that are left in the deck will give you top pair. Some of the common drawing situations that come up are straight and flush draws. If you have an open ended straight such as a Ten, Jack, Queen, and King, you have 8 outs, 4 at each end of the straight, in this case 4 Nines and 4 Aces. With an inside straight, such as Eight, Nine, Jack Queen, you have 4 outs, the 4 Tens. With a flush draw, 4 of the same suit, there are 9 other cards of that same suit, so 9 outs. You must also watch for outs other than the obvious. For instance, if you Have a Jack and Ten, and the flop is an Eight, Nine and Ten, you have 8 outs to an open ended straight, 2 outs to hit 3 Tens, and 3 Jacks, 3 Eights and 3 Nines to 2 pair. While you are looking for outs, you must also be adjusting for the situation. One thing that all of these examples have in common is that you can hit one of your outs and still lose. With the King and Queen in your hand, someone could already have 3 Tens, a Pair of Queens, Kings or Aces, or a straight draw that your card will complete. With straights, if you have the low end, i.e. you have the Eight and Nine in an Eight, Nine, Ten, Jack combination, someone else may be drawing at the high end. In many cases, you must compensate for situations like this by discounting your outs. For instance, with 2 over cards, instead of counting 6 outs you would only count 3, 1.5 for the 3 Queens and 1.5 for the 3 Kings. With a straight draw, and 2 of 1 suit on the board, instead of 8 outs you would only count 6 since at each end of the straight there is one of your cards that will put a possible flush in play. With an inside straight, it would be 3 outs. While you often need to discount outs, you should also add some outs in certain situations. For instance, if you have 3 to a straight or flush, with 2 cards to come, it is possible that you could hit the 2 cards you need. Since it is unlikely, and you could hit the 2 cards and still lose, draws like this aren't worth much, probably 1 out. Once you have counted your outs, it is time to convert them to odds. A few examples should make the process clear. First, consider the open ended straight with 8 outs. You have seen 5 cards, out of a 52 card deck, which means that there are 47 cards that you have not seen. Out of the 47 cards, there are 8 that improve your hand to a straight, and 39 cards that do not. You therefore have odds of 39:8 against making your hand. You simplify this to just under 5:1 (5 * 8 = 40). With a flush draw, you have 9 outs, so there are 9 cards that will help you and 38 cards that will not for odds of 38:9 against making your flush. When you simplify this you get a little bit worse than 4:1 against. (4 * 9 = 36). With an inside straight draw, you have 4 outs, so 4 cards out of 47 help, and 43 do not, or odds of 43:4, almost 11:1 against making the straight. One situation that you should pay particular attention to is the case where you have a pair, a pair of Queens for instance. If a King, or an Ace comes on the flop, someone bets, and you believe they have the higher pair, the only way you can win is by hitting 1 of the 2 remaining Queens. You have 2 outs, 2 cards that will help, and 45 that will not, for 45:2, or 22.5:1 against getting the third Queen on the next card. Of course the situation is even worse than this since your opponent could have 3 Kings or 3 Aces, or when the Queen hits, it may make someone a straight, so you may hit your 3 queens and still lose. Once you have calculated your odds of making the hand, the next thing to do is compare them to the pot odds and implied odds. In my article 'Pot Odds and Implied Pot Odds' I explain how these are calculated. I also explain that what we always want to do is identify good bets and bad bets. We want to bet, or raise, with good bets, and fold with bad bets. You identify the good and bad bets by comparing the pot odds, and implied odds to your odds of making your hand. In the case of an open ended straight, with 8 outs, and odds of 5:1 against, you would need to be getting pot odds of at least 5:1 to call. For example, pot odds of 6:1 would be a good bet, while pot odds of 4:1 would be a bad bet. With a flush draw, you need pot odds of at least 4:1. The inside straight would require pot odds of at least 11:1, and your pair of queens needs 22.5:1. Of course there is more to it than that. If you can make your hand and still lose, you need higher pot odds to compensate for that possibility, sometimes substantially higher. You must also consider many other factors. You might call a bet, thinking you have the correct pot odds, and someone after you then raises, ruining the odds you thought you had. If there are more people to act, after you, you need higher odds in order to call, and you need to be aware of what those players are likely to do. In the example of the pair of Queens, might the person who bet before you be bluffing? You can't always assume that just because someone bets that they have you beaten. If you are sure that they would only bet with the top pair, fold, but if you aren't sure, and the pot is big, you may have to call the hand down. While odds are only one consideration in making your decision, they are a powerful indicator of what needs to be done. If the decision is close based on the odds, use other considerations such as position, your opponents and the size of the pot to tip the decision one way or another. However, if the odds are not close to being in your favor, fold. Routinely calling with pot odds of 4:1 when your odds of making the winning hand are 11:1 against, or even worse, is a recipe for long term disaster.