Counting Outs in Poker
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Learning to count outs in poker is one of the most important and fundamental tools in a poker player’s conception of the game. An ‘out’ is defined as the cards required to win the hand, which can vary, obviously, depending on what the other player holds. The general process of assigning an opponent to a range of hands and then building off that assumption, though, makes the idea of counting your outs vital to understanding the value of your hand in relation to the size of the pot.
Counting outs varies fairly widely but here are some examples of out computations. If you think that the only way you can win a poker hand is to make a flush, and you have four to the flush in your hand using the board cards, there are then 9 of the suit left in the deck, giving you nine outs.
If you have a top pair on the board with a low kicker and think your opponent might have that top pair also with a better kicker, you have three of that kicker left in the deck, giving you three outs. If instead of the top pair your opponent has an overpair, and you can then hit either of your hole cards to win, you can hit either of your 3 kickers remaining or one of the other of the cards paired on board, giving you 5 outs.
To compute the percentage of winning, in general on the turn you can multiply your outs by 4 for a rough percentage of your outs to win with two cards to come, and with one to come you can multiply by 2. Thus if on the flop you have 9 outs, you are a 36% chance to win, and if you miss on the turn you are an 18% chance to win, etc.