Calculating Outs part 3

But its not enough to calculate your outs. You have to consider the cards of your opponents, too.
Using the example from the previous post with different opponent cards:
We are holding: A♥, K♥
Our opponent holds: A♣, 9♦
Flop: 7♥,3♣,9♥

When an Ace hits the turn or the river we still get our pair. But our opponent gets a double-pair which is stronger.
=> Out hand will not be the winning hand if an Ace shows up.
Now our 15 outs (3 A, 3K, 9 Hearts) suddenly become 12 outs, because you would not win with the Aces.

What if our opponent holds pocket 7?

We are holding: A♥, K♥
Our opponent holds: 7♣, 7♦
Flop: 7♥,3♣,9♥

Aces or Kings won't help in this situation because he has a triple. The only remaining possibility is the flush. But a 3♥ will give him a full house.
So the number of our outs shrink to 15 -3(Aces won't help) - 3(Kings won't help) -1 (3♥ will give him full house)
=> only 8 outs left.

Even if we make our hand on the turn, even if we would hit a heart on the turn our opponent will have 10 outs left to make a better hand!
One 7, three 3s, three 9s and three of whatever car  hit the turn. So even if you have a flush he has 10 outs to make quads or a full house and beat you.


Runner-Runner Outs
If you need two cards to make your winning hand, one on the turn and one on the river, it is called a runner-runner out.

Example:
We are holding: 5♥,6♥
Our opponent holds: A♣, Q♦
Flop: 5♦, 7♥, Q♣

We have 5 ordinary outs:
Two 5s to make trips, Three 6s to make double-pair.

But we have also one runner-runner flush out (if a heart hits turn and river) and one runner-runner straight out (Turn 4, River 3 or Turn 4, River 8 or Turn 8, River 9)

So a total of 7 outs.

=> Do not put your money in for a second pair when they have top pair!

Calculating Outs part 2

Lets look at another example:
We are holding: A♥, K♥
Our opponent holds: J♣, J♠
Flop: 7♥,3♣,9♥

In this case the AK of hearts is the weaker hand.To win we have following options:
A pair with either the King or the Ace.
A double pair with King and Ace.
A triple with King or the Ace.
A flush.

You can categorize the first three options.
For all of them you need at least one King or one Ace. There are 3 remaining Kings and 3 remaining Aces in the deck. That gives us 6 outs for the first three options.

For the flush we need another card of hearts. There are 9 remaining heart cards left in the deck. So that gives us another 9 outs.
=> total of 15 outs for that situation

We know now that there is a maximum of 15 winning cards left in the deck. But some cards may have been already folded or some could be in our opponent's hand.
But since we don't know what cards have been folded we have to proceed under the assumption that all of our potential outs are available.


Common "outs" Situations:
- Flop a flush draw => 9 outs
- Flop a flush draw with two over cards (seen in example above) => 15 outs
- Flop an open-ended straight draw => 8 outs
- Flop a gut-shot straight draw => 4  outs (i.e. 5,6,8,9: you need the 7, only 4 7s left)
- Under-pair to your opponents over-pair => 2 outs
- If neither you or your opponent have a pair, but he is still ahead => 6 outs
(i.e. he has A,K; you have Q,J => 3 Jacks, 3 Queens)
- Flop a straight flush draw => 15 outs

Remember tho, you usually don't have all your outs to come and improve your hand.

Calculating outs part 3

Calculating Outs part 1

In this blogpost i will show you how to calculate the number of outs you have for a given hand. You probably saw it on TV: a player puts all his chips in the middle and then asks the dealer: "just one time!"
He is begging the dealer to give him one of his outs: a card to make his loosing hand the winning hand.
What are outs?
They are the card, or cards, that can hit the board to give a player who is holding a losing hand a winning one.

One basic example:
You have pocket Jacks and go all-in pre-flop. A player behind you calls and shows pocket aces. How many cards in the deck can give you the winning hand?

Pre-flop there are only 2 outs: the 2 remaining Jacks
Lets say the flop is 8,  9 and 10 offsuit. Now how many outs do you have?
The answer is 10.
7 and Q would both give you a straight. There are 4 7s and 4 Qs left in the deck so 8 outs for a straight. Plus the 2 outs from pre-flop which would give you trips or possibly quads.

=> The number of outs can increase or decrease depending on the cards which fall on the flop or turn.

I will post more examples in one of the next posts and show you ways to easily determine the number of out at any given time with any given hand.

Calculating Outs part 2