I hope PS won't mind the image included here.
Few may know that today is when I intend to study poker. The topic I chose for this morning is Odds and Outs. To facilitate this learning I've found something that may warrant a little discussion.
Example #2 from odds and outs (page 3).
I wanted to talk about the number of outs we're giving ourselves on the flop vs these villains for our 1 card flush draw.
After the button folds on the flop, we're left to assume that we're up against 3 opponents rather than 4. From here we go on to give ourselves 10 outs.
Lets consider a preflop situation where MP3 open limps, CO raises, and Button folds. Both blinds call and we are again 4 ways to the flop.
Now, CO bets, SB raises and we're considering our outs. The cost to continue may change since 2 players are left to act behind us BUT this largely influences our odds and I would like to discuss our outs.
So, with this new situation how many outs do we have? Our article suggests we have just 7 outs now. I think this represents a kind of disconnect.
To really illustrate my problem, imagine a flop scenario where 9 players are involved. The preflop/UTG raiser bets, everyone folds to the small blind who raises and we are again 3 handed. Once again we would have 10 outs.... ? I don't think so. I think we would be correct in discounting our outs much further because of the number of players who saw the flop.
I guess I'm advocating for two factors when discounting outs:
1) the number of players who saw the flop.
2) the number of players who are very likely to continue to the turn.
Number 2 may be more important with respect to the action we are facing on the flop... but sometimes number 1 will significantly influence our outs.
In the
revised scenario i've presented we give ourselves just 7 outs... but I think this situation is much closer to a 3 way hand and our outs are not quite as good as 10, but better than 7.