Knowing how to count outs in poker is one of the first mathematical principles you must master when starting.
Fortunately, counting 🌧️ poker outs is not too difficult, and there are some easy ways to figure out how many outs you have 🌧️ in each situation.
But what exactly are outs in poker, and how can you use them to be a better poker 🌧️ player?
We will explain all that and more. By the time you are done reading, you will know what outs are, 🌧️ how to count them, and how to calculate your equity based on the number of outs you have.
What are Poker 🌧️ Outs?
Outs in poker are cards that help improve your hand.
For example, if you are holding a pair of kings against 🌧️ pocket aces, you have two outs to hit your set since only two kings are left in the deck.
Of course, 🌧️ outs come into play much more once the flop is dealt and you are working with five cards. In this 🌧️ case, you will often not have a made hand yet and will be looking to improve, so understanding this concept 🌧️ is essential.
Any card that will improve your hand can be considered an out, although not all poker outs carry the 🌧️ same weight, so let’s dive into that a bit deeper.
How to Counts Outs in Poker
Since you already know what poker 🌧️ ours are, let’s discuss how to count it.
Simply put, you need to figure out which cards will help improve your 🌧️ hand and then think about all the cards in the deck.
In the example of a flush draw, you currently hold 🌧️ two hearts in your hand, and there are two hearts on the flop. Since we know there are 13 hearts 🌧️ in the deck, you have nine outs to make your flush.
However, other cards may also help your hand. For example, 🌧️ if your flush draw contains an ace, which is an over card to the board, any of the remaining aces 🌧️ could make you the top pair.
Since you are holding the ace of hearts, three additional aces could land on the 🌧️ turn or river, increasing your outs count by three.
Whatever your current hand is, you should try to think about all 🌧️ cards that will improve it on the turn or river and count those cards to come up with your total 🌧️ outs count.
As you get better at it, you will immediately know how many outs you have in some common situations.
Here 🌧️ are a few frequent flop situations that arise in poker that you should know by heart:
Inside Straight Draw: 4 outs 🌧️ to a straight
4 outs to a straight Set: 10 outs to a full house or four of a kind
10 outs 🌧️ to a full house or four of a kind Open-Ended Straight Draw: 8 outs to a straight
8 outs to a 🌧️ straight Flush Draw: 9 outs to a flush
9 outs to a flush Open-Ended Straight Flush Draw: 15 outs to a 🌧️ straight or a flush
It is important to know that not all outs are “clean,” so it is important to separate 🌧️ between cards that can turn our hand into nuts and ones that can only make it slightly stronger.
You have nine 🌧️ outs to hit your flush if you have a flush draw
How to Use Poker Outs in Game
So now you know 🌧️ how to count outs in poker, but you still don’t really know how this will help you be a better 🌧️ poker player.
After all, knowing how many cards will help you is nice, but it won’t help make those cards appear 🌧️ on the turn or river.
Since there is no way to know which cards are coming, all we can do is 🌧️ calculate probability and use it to our advantage.
This probability is known as equity in poker, and it determines how likely 🌧️ we are to improve our hand and ultimately win the pot by simply having the best hand by showdown.
Knowing the 🌧️ number of outs we have is the first step to calculating equity in a poker hand. The next step is 🌧️ to use maths to calculate what percentage of the time you will make your hand.
Let us assume we are holding 🌧️ Ks Qs on a board of As 9s 4c. Our opponent is relatively tight and passive and is now betting 🌧️ into us, which means they are likely holding at least a pair of aces.
In this case, we have nine outs 🌧️ to make our flush, and any other outs we may have won’t really help us, as we will still probably 🌧️ lose if a K or Q comes on the turn or river.
We know that there are 52 cards in the 🌧️ deck, and we can see five of those cards, leaving us with a total of 47 cards left, nine of 🌧️ which are spades.
A simple division of 47:9 tells us that we are looking at a ratio of 4.22:1, which translates 🌧️ into 19.16%. However, it is also important to remember that there are still two cards left to come.
Since both turn 🌧️ and river are going to be dealt out, we need to calculate for both those cards and realize that our 🌧️ equity will slightly improve going to the last card if the turn is not a spade since there will be 🌧️ one fewer card in the deck.
So for the turn, we have 46 cards left with still all of the 9 🌧️ spades in the deck. Using the same logic and dividing 46:9, we get a 4.11:1 ratio which gives a 19.57% 🌧️ chance of hitting your flush.
When all these calculations are considered, the equity we come up with is 38.73%.
This does not 🌧️ include the runner-runner straight possibility when holding KQ, so the actual number is slightly different, but it is the best 🌧️ way to illustrate this example. That being said, these calculations can take some time to do at the table and 🌧️ are very impractical. Therefore, there is a much simpler solution to calculating your approximate equity based on your number of 🌧️ poker outs.
Using the Rule of Two and Four
The equity calculations we did in the previous example are kind of complicated, 🌧️ and it would be tedious to do them in the middle of a hand while facing the pressure of a 🌧️ bet.
Instead, there is a much simpler way to calculate your equity without complicated math.
If you are on the flop, take 🌧️ the number of outs and multiply it by four.
If you are on the turn, take the number of outs and 🌧️ multiply it by two.
In the previous example, we looked at an example of a flush draw, and we calculated the 🌧️ equity of 38.73% on the flop and 19.57% on the turn.
If we apply the rule of two and four to 🌧️ this example, we will come up with 36% (9x4) on the flop and 18% (9x2) on the turn.
You can see 🌧️ that these numbers are not perfect, but they are within 2% of the real equity, and they take only a 🌧️ few seconds to calculate.
We also highly recommend remembering the equities of the most common scenarios, such as flush draws, straight 🌧️ draws, and sets by heart, but using the rule of two and four in all other scenarios.
Q9 had 6 outs 🌧️ on the flop, which would mean approximately 24% equity
Calculating Equity with More than Nine Outs
As the number of outs becomes 🌧️ higher, using the rule of two and four will start to deviate from true equity more and more.
For that reason, 🌧️ there is another formula you should remember and use when you have more than nine outs on the flop in 🌧️ a poker hand.
The formula is:
Equity = (Number of outs x4) – (Number of Outs – 8)
Let us imagine we have 🌧️ 15 outs and run the calculation:
Equity = (15*4) – (15-8)
Equity = 60 – 7
Equity = 53%
We would have got 60% 🌧️ using the rule of two and four, while the new formula says 53%.
The true equity of this situation is 54.1%, 🌧️ which means that this formula gets us closer to the exact result than the previous one.
Combo Draws and “Dirty Outs”
There 🌧️ are many possible situations that can arise in a hand of Texas Hold’em, and our poker outs count can go 🌧️ up and down with every new card that hits.
When counting outs, we should distinguish between outs that make us the 🌧️ nuts and those that simply improve our hand.
For example, let us imagine a scenario in which we are holding Jc 🌧️ Tc, and the flop comes out Ac 9c 8s. In this scenario, we have open-ended straight and flush draws.
Our open-ended 🌧️ straight draw will give us the absolute nuts on both sides, while our flush draw will give us a strong 🌧️ flush, also very likely to be the best hand.
Since this is the case, we can count all our outs in 🌧️ full and consider this as a 15-out situation, a fairly rare occurrence in Texas Hold’em.
On the other hand, imagine holding 🌧️ Ah 7h on a board of Kh 6h 4d. Here, nine outs to a flush give us the absolute nuts 🌧️ and are considered “clean” outs.
We could also hit an ace which would give us top pair, but having top pair 🌧️ in no way guarantees that we have the best hand. In fact, hitting that card could even cost us some 🌧️ money.
Depending on factors such as the player we are playing against and the positional situation, we may still consider the 🌧️ ace to some degree but definitely should not count it as a “clean” out to win this pot.
Outs can get 🌧️ even dirtier than that, as hitting the second or third pair to the board can also win us the pot 🌧️ sometimes, but such cards should never be counted as true poker outs.
When calculating your equity in a poker hand, you 🌧️ should only seriously consider poker outs that guarantee you will have a very strong hand that's unlikely to be beaten 🌧️ by your opponent's perceived hand.
What is Next?
Now that you know how to count outs in poker and turn the number 🌧️ of outs into equity, you can start applying this knowledge at the tables.
We highly recommend looking into our guides on 🌧️ pot odds and implied odds, which will help you further understand how to use equity and make better decisions.
After all, 🌧️ knowing you will win a hand 36% of the time is not enough to beat good poker players in the 🌧️ long run, so you should use this information as a starting point. Combine your understanding of counting outs, pot odds, 🌧️ and implied odds, and you will be working with an arsenal that can help you defeat even proficient poker players.
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