Poker Outs Explained

How to count outs is one of the first things people learn when they pick up a poker book or are taught the game by a friend. When played properly poker is a game of making good decisions based on the odds you are being offered. Whether or not a decision is a good one often comes down to your equity in the hand or to simplify a little, your chance of winning at showdown.

• People often say that poker is a game of mathematics and probability. In order to play profitably over the long run, knowing and being able to apply the mathematical skill aspect to your game is certainly true! The strategy involves a part of the game that deals with calculating (1) outs, (2) poker pot odds and (3) your poker equity in a pot.
• If you are interested in the learning poker math, check out our best poker books recommendation page here for some awesome books on poker math. How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example. Work out pot odds. In this hand, our opponent bets $26 into a $41.5 pot making the total pot size $67.5.
• How to count outs is one of the first things people learn when they pick up a poker book or are taught the game by a friend. When played properly poker is a game of making good decisions based on the odds you are being offered.

What are Outs?

In the simplest possible terms, an out is a card that may come on a future street that is very likely to give you the winning hand. For example if you are all-in pre-flop against an opponent and you hold KhKs against his AsAd then your primary outs are the two remaining Kings in the deck, which will give you a set.

Another example would be if you are facing a bet on all-in bet on the flop with 7d8d on a board of 9sTsAh. You can be reasonably confident that you can be reasonably confident that any Jack or 6 will give you the winning hand. There are four of each card still in the deck, so you have a total of 8 outs in this situation, unless of course your opponent has KQ in which case the Jack would give him a higher straight.

How Knockout Poker works. Knockout Poker tournaments are special MTT and Sit & Go tournaments where the prize money is split, with a part going to the overall prize pool, and the other part distributed among players for each opponent they knock out. Counting outs is not the most difficult of tasks a poker player must perform; however but it is one of the most useful. If you know how to count and think about your outs you are well of some of the poker population. Counting outs allows you to understand how likely you are to win the hand.

How to Count Outs

There are some common scenarios in which you should be able to recall off the top of your head how many outs you have. In the example where we held KK above it’s fairly obvious that there are two Kings left in the deck and so we have two outs, but what about drawing hands. Here is a list of typical drawing hands and how many outs they have:

Flush Draw: There are 13 cards of each suit in the deck. If you flop a flush draw, there will be two in your hand and two on the board, leaving a total of 9 cards in the deck which will give you a flush

Open Ended Straight Draw: In the hand where we held 7d8d above we had an open-ended straight draw where any Jack or six made our straight. As mentioned there are 4 cards of each rank in the deck for a total of 8 outs. Note that a flush draw is slightly stronger than an open ended straight draw.

Gutshot Straight Draw: If we held JsQs on a board of 8d9h2d then we have a gutshot straight draw, where only a ten will give us a straight. As we know, there are four tens in the deck so we have a total of four outs.

Double-Gutshot Straight Draw: Double gutshots are sometimes a little more difficult to recognise. An example would be holding 9s8s on a 5d7dJh board. In this case a six or a ten gives us a straight meaning that, as with the open-ended straight draw, we have eight outs.

Counting Outs in More Complicated Situations

There are a couple of situations in poker where counting outs isn’t so straightforward:

A Set vs. a Flush: If you’re unlucky enough to get all in on the flop with a set against an opponent that has flopped a flush, you still have a pretty good chance at winning. Let’s say you hold 3s3d on a 3h5hAh board and your opponent has KhQh. You can still overtake him by making a full house or quads. In this situation you are looking to hit the lone three in the deck or hoping that that the Ace or the five pair. There are three of each left in the deck giving you a total of 7 outs.

Overcards: Sometimes you’ll be faced with a situation where even making a pair will win you the hand. Say you hold Ah3h on a Th5h8s board and your opponent goes all-in after re-raising you pre-flop, and you have a strong suspicion that he has an over pair. In this case AA is unlikely so you think he has JJ-KK most of the time. In this situation, as well as your flush outs, even hitting and Ace will win you the hand, so you can add the three Aces remaining in the deck to your outs. Of course, occasionally he will have AA, or a hand like TT and your Ace outs won’t be good. This is where counting outs gets a little more tricky. To account for these times you might just take one or two of the Aces as clean outs to account for the times where hitting an Ace isn’t going to win you the hand.

The Application of Outs to Your Play

Now that you know how to calculate how many outs you have in a hand, how can you use this information to benefit you? There is a simple rule for converting outs into your percentage chance of winning the hand.

On the flop, multiply the number of outs you have by 4.
On the turn, multiply the number of outs you have by 2.

So taking an example, if you have an open-ended straight draw which you know gives you eight outs, then on the flop you have a 4 x 8 = 32% chance of winning the hand. If you miss, then on the turn you have a 16% chance of winning the hand. You can then apply this information to the size of the pot and make your decision based on the information available to you. If your opponent bets all-in for $100 in a pot of $100 and you have an open ended straight draw, you can combine the pots odds you are getting with your chances of winning the hand. In this case, you’re being offered 2/1 meaning you need to win the hand 33% of the time to break even, but your draw only has a 32% chance of hitting, so making this call will be a marginal loser of money in the long run. If the pot is smaller and your opponent has bet less, then you can factor in the money you might win on future streets into your decision on whether or not to continue with your draw.

Did you ever wonder what is all the maths that professional poker players seem to be doing in their head? Well a lot of the time they will be counting outs to see what chance they have of winning.

Learning the basics of counting outs is another step on your journey to becoming a proficient poker player. But first what exactly are poker outs?

An out is any card that will improve your hand to better than that of your opponent. A common example is when you have four hearts in your hand and need the fifth heart to complete the flush (i.e. a flush draw) . If you count the number of hearts left in the deck (13 total minus the 4 in your hand = 9), you know how many outs you have and can work out the probabaility of winning the hand.

So counting outs is just very basic addition and multiplication.

Another simple example is when you have a flush draw such as A♥ K♥ of hearts on T♥ 7♥ 2♠ – you currently only have Ace high but any heart will give you a flush.

There are 9 hearts in total which will complete your draw however one of those hearts (2♥) may give your opponent a full house.

You can also hit an ace (A♠, A♣, A♦) or king (K♠, K♣, K♦) but these cards aren’t always guaranteed to give you the best hand. Generally speaking, you only count the outs which are sure to give you the best hand.

Table Of Contents

• Considerations and additional points when counting outs

Counting Outs: The Process

The first question you need to ask yourself when counting outs is ’How many cards in the deck will give me the hand I want? ‘

For example if you have a flush draw you will have 9 outs, if you have a gut shot you will have 4 outs, and with an opened ended straight draw you have 8 outs. A table below summarizes each draw with number of outs.

Now that you know how many outs you have you need to actually use that number There is no point in calculating your outs if we aren’t going to use it in our decision making process.

The easiest way to do this is using the rule of 2 and 4…

The rule of 2 and 4

This rule is pretty simple.

To work out your equity or chance of winning when seeing the turn you multiply the number of outs by 2. Thus if we have 9 outs we will multiply that by 2 to get 18% equity.

For example if we are on the turn and want to know our chance of hitting by the river this is the method we would use.

To estimate your equity or chance of winning when on the flop you multiply the number of outs by 4. Again, if we have 9 outs we will multiply that by 4 to get 36% equity. For example if we are on the flop and want to know our chance of hitting by the river.

The rule of 2 and 4 is only an estimation for our equity but it is usually accurate giving our equity to within a percentage point or two.

Part of counting your outs is understanding if you are ahead or behind (and by how much) so it is important to understand your opponent's range. For more information on ranges see thefollowing link.

When we know our equity we can make a decision whether our hand is worth continuing with.

This method is actually pretty accurate, particularly for low numbers of outs. See the table below where I compared equity for each situation using the 2 and 4 method and equilab.

The above table assumes that only the the primary draw goes towards our chances of winning. In reality, you will have slightly more equity than the rule of 2 and 4 suggests as you will often have equity from backdoor draws and overcards.

The overall process for counting outs and calculating equity

1. Determine what hand you have or could potentially have. If you are not sure of the hand rankings make sure you check them out
2. Count how many cards will give you that hand
3. Calculate your equity using the rule of 2 and 4
4. Determine if your hand is worth continuing vs a bet by weighting your equity vs pot odds.

Considerations and additional points when counting outs

Double Counting

One must always be careful not to double count outs. With a big draw such as a straight and flush draw we will have 9 outs to the flush and 8 outs to the straight. However, of the straight draw outs there will be two which also complete the flush; thus we must remove these double counted outs.

As a result we no longer have 17 outs (9 flush + 8 straight), we now have 15 outs (9 flush + 6 straight or 7 flush + 8 straight)

The Double gutter

One interesting hand type is the double gutter. A double gutter is as the name suggests a double gut shot.

An example is when you have JT on AQ8 board. Any 9 or K will make you a straight. A double gutter can sometimes be difficult to spot, even for experienced players.

However, that makes them more powerful than other draws, as when you hit your hand it is more disguised. A more disguised hand is more likely to get paid off when you hit.

The Monster Draw

Another interesting hand type is the ‘monster’ draw. These are draws with typically 12 or more outs such as a flush draw + straight draw, or a flush draw plus pair type hand.

These hands have so many outs that it almost never wrong to commit all your chips (given you have a reasonable stack size).

The most powerful of all these hand types is the open ended straight flush draw- J♥T♥ on Q♥9♥5♣.

With this hand, not only do you have a flush and a straight draw but you have two cards which are the absolute nuts – you cannot ever be beaten if you hit the K♥ or the 8♥. The importance of these 2 outs cannot be underestimated.

One issue with monster draws is that the rule and two and four begins to break down- the rule overestimates the equity. Although there will be very few situations where you will be folding a big draw.

All Outs Are Not Equal – Anti-outs

Another aspect we need to take into account is that not all outs are created equal. Outs to the nuts (the strongest hand possible) are always the most sought after type of outs; unfortunately we won’t always have outs to the nuts.

In most cases we will count our flush draw out as a normal out but it can complete a full house for our opponent.

Take for example our opponent has 77 on T♥7♥2♠: we will count the 2♥ as an out when we have a heart flush draw.

However, it will improve our opponent's hand at the same time as ours; unfortunately for us that will be to a full house which beats a flush.

We will lose a lot of money in this example.

A further example of drawing to not nutted outs is the ‘dummy’ or bottom end of the straight. When we have the bottom two cards of a four to a straight, for example 87 on T95 flop, we will be dominated by a hand such as KQ; if a jack hits we will both complete a straight but KQ will have the nut straight, beating our lower straight.

As such, drawing to the upper end of the straight is much more powerful. Although, it is not always possible to avoid drawing to the dummy end of the straight. However, take into account they are less powerful than other straight draws and hence you should be less likely to proceed with them vs betting action.

Poker Outs Explained Games

We can apply a similar thought process to overcard outs: AK on T52 board. If we hit our Ace or King on the turn we may not still have the best hand. Someone may have a set or two pair already or they might make two pair with the card which helps us.

Counting Outs Real Life Example:

Poker Outs Explained Game

How many outs do we have here?

Poker Outs Explained Rules

Our opponent has 44 and we have 9♥8♥ on T♥5♣3♥7♠ board.

• We have two overcards to our opponent so that is 3 outs for the 9 and 3 outs for the 8 for a total of 6.
• We have a J and a 6 to complete our straight which is 4 each for a total of 8.
• We also have a flush draw of which there is 13 hearts in total. We have 2 of them hearts, our opponent has one and there are two on the board. That leaves 8 hearts.

Poker Outs Explained Poker

That gives a total of 22 outs..

However we have double counted some of the outs. The 6♥ and the J♥ are counted in the flush and the straight counts we made.

We should only count them once meaning that we now have a total of 20 outs. Using the rule of 2 and 4, we know that we have approximately 40% equity since we are on the turn.

That means we should be calling almost any sized bet on this turn if we knew our opponent had a pair of 4's on the board.

Conclusion

Counting outs is not the most difficult of tasks a poker player must perform; however but it is one of the most useful. If you know how to count and think about your outs you are well of some of the poker population.

Counting outs allows you to understand how likely you are to win the hand. This allow you to decide whether you want to continue versus a bet or raise and hence make more informed decisions at the poker table.

The more likely to win the hand, the less likely you should be to fold.

Follow up this lesson with another on Pot Equity.