ONLINE POKER 101: Step 3, Counting Outs
Posted by Pajamas Poker on November 7th, 2009To do well in poker you don’t need to be a math whiz that can calculate the entire deck on the fly, you just need to know some basic rules to be successful. The first step in poker math is calculating and always knowing your outs.
Counting Outs
Suppose your hand is the 6 of Hearts and the Jack of Hearts:
The flop comes down and it’s the King of Hearts, 3 of Spades and 4 of Hearts:
It is evident that after the flop, without improving your hand dramatically you have very little chance of winning. However, if you calculate the outs you’ll see that it isn’t horrible. As you may have already noticed, if any remaining Heart comes on the turn or river you’ll make a flush. When counting outs be sure not to count the cards currently known, so a total of 9 Hearts remain:
If you notice, you may also pair either your 6 of Hearts and the Jack of Hearts so you may calculate those additional 6 cards if you desire, however since there is an over-card (King of Hearts) showing on the board it isn’t recommended that you count the lesser cards as outs, because you should assume another player already has a pair of Kings. Now if you paired one of your cards on the turn THEN you could count the other six cards as outs because you have a chance at a set (3 of a kind) that would beat the pair of Kings.
Knowing your outs is key at all times and knowing what to consider an out is even more crucial. Make sure to always keep tally of your outs, and don’t forget to include the straight-draw outs either! In our post later today, we’ll show you how you can easily calculate your outs into quick odds that will help you either continue with your hand or rightly fold.
