Poker Basics - Outs

Another quick guide for newbies, this time on how to play hands that could become monsters if you catch the right card.

It is called a draw, when you probably do not hold the best hand after the flop, but still have realistic chances to improve your hand into the best one. Typical draws are flush draws or straight draws. The cards that complete your draw are called outs.

Example: You hold 87 and the flop is AT3. You have a flush draw. Every heart on the turn gives you a flush. The deck includes 13 hearts. Two of them are in your hand and two are in the flop. So there are nine hearts remaining, that can give you a flush on the turn. This means you have nine outs.

The more outs a draw has, the stronger it is. Remember only to count those cards as outs that really improve your draw into the best hand with a high probability. If an 8 appears on the turn in this example, then your hand improves into a pair, but it is anything but sure, that you will be ahead with this holding.

Texas Hold'em odds are the probability to hit an out

In order to be able to make the right decision with your draw you need to know the probability to hit an out on the turn or the river. This is calculated as follows:

Step 1: Determine the number of outs, that complete your draw.

Step 2: Divide the number of your outs by the number of possible cards that might appear on the next street.

Back to the example: You hold 87 and the flop is AT3 and you have a flush draw. You already know that you have nine outs by this. In the next step you have to divide the number of your outs by the total number of turn cards.

The deck has 52 cards. Five of these are already known to you. Two of them you hold in your hand and three are in the flop. So there are 47 unknown cards left that can appear on the turn. So the probability to get the flush on the turn is:

9 outs / 47 possible cards = 0,19 = 19% ~ 4 to 1.

The probability is called odds. In Texas Hold'em, odds are regularly given in the notation "x to y". A probability of 19% means that you will hit an out on the next street in about one out of five cases. This is given by "4 to 1". An average there are four misses opposed to one hit.

In the following chart you find poker odds for typical situations. It also includes Texas Hold'em odds from the flop to the river. For example, these are important in an all-in situation, since in an all-in you will see the turn and river for sure.

To learn more about the basics of outs in poker check out this article or watch the video below:

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