Counting Outs In Texas Holdem
Calculating texas holdem outs is a basic but important skill to master. Knowing your outs at any given stage will give you the ability to figure your chances of making a hand, which in turn allows you to work out whether a play is profitable or not.
At the tables you will often hear people talking about outs; "I had 2 outs to hit my set". The principle of outs is simple. Counting them is also fairly straight forward; however, you need to be able to count them accurately every time. This is where some players can fall down and you don’t want to be one of those. Counting outs inaccurately, either giving yourself too many outs or not enough outs, can severely skew the odds and put your whole game out of shape.
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So what are outs?
"Outs" is the term used for cards left in the deck that will improve your hand to what you think will be the best hand. If you were holding Q J on a rainbow flop of A K 8, your outs would be any 10, as any 10 would make a broadway straight (A through to 10), which happens to be the best possible hand in this circumstance.
How to Count Outs?
This is neither rocket science nor is it an exact science, which is where confusion can set in. Generally outs are cards you figure will give you a winning hand. Part of the skill to counting outs is to have an idea of what type of hand your opponent may be playing. In our example above where you have Q J on the A K 8 flop, you assume only 4 outs. Depending on how the hand has played out, a pair of Q’s or J’s may also be enough to put you in a winning position (unlikely with the A and the K on the board, however this is a good example of where you have a decision to make with how many outs you have). The safest option for a beginning player is to count outs that will make the best possible hand, or a hand that you are near certain will make the best hand at the table. One of the worst mistakes you can make in holdem is to be drawing to hands that will not be the best when you hit. This is an easy way to bleed off a lot of chips at the table. Considering positions like this where middle pair may be good enough takes considerable hand reading skills, and can be incorporated into more advanced plays as you become more experienced. For the most part the number of outs you have will be blatantly obvious. In the previous example, you have 4 outs, any 10 in the deck will give you a straight. If you have a low pocket pair preflop, you know there are exactly 2 cards in the deck that will make three of a kind. These types of examples are the most common and illustrate some basic situations in which you would count outs.
A frequent question that arises from this is how do you know how many outs you really have? In the example with the straight, how can you be sure that someone else isn’t holding a 10, or that one hasn’t already been discarded into the muck by a player, in which case you may only have 2 or 1 out available? The simple answer is you don’t. You can never be sure that another player is holding an exact card, and you can never be sure of what cards players have already discarded, so the simple way to counter this lack of information is to always assume that any unseen cards are live.
Double Counting Outs
Double counting is the other common mistake when counting outs that you should be aware of. This can happen when you have multiple draws at the same time. If you are holding 10h 9h and the flop comes 8s 7h 5h you now have two draws; any heart will make a flush, whilst a Jack or a 6 will give you a straight. This means you have 9 outs for the hearts draw, and 8 outs for your open end straight draw, making a total of 17 outs (9+8=17), right? No, this would be an inaccurate count on your odds. You really only have 15 outs in this situation. If you counted 17, you have not taken into account that two of the cards that give you your flush; the Jh and 6h will also make your straight, so you can only count these cards once each. Meaning you have 9 hearts that will give you a flush, and 6 additional cards for the straight (Js, Jc, Jd, 6s, 6c, 6d). Whenever you are counting outs for multiple draws try to be weary of this.
With a little bit of practice, counting outs will become second nature. It may seem a bit daunting at first, however in time you will find that you simply remember how many outs you have in specific situations, i.e A flush and an inside straight draw gives you 12 outs, an inside straight draw on its own is 4 outs, as is drawing to a full house when you have two pair.
Once you have mastered the art of counting outs in texas holdem, you can use this information to equate your odds of winning a hand. This is the next step in becoming a more profitable poker player.
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