Got your calculators ready? Well, I’m hoping you won’t need them, because there are some simple ways to calculate a lot of odds that you will be required to compute. The first section of this series about odds is about outs. What are outs?Outs are simply the number of cards that will likely win the hand for you.Texas Hold ‘Em has a great summary of the chances you will catch one of your outs on the turn or the river. Click on the hyperlink next to the out to get an example of each.The calculations are done by simple division.
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For example, you have a flush draw, which means that you have 4 of some suit. You need the 5th one to make a flush, and there are 9 left in the deck (the original 13 minus the 4 you’re working with). You are holding two cards, and the flop contains three cards, so 47 cards are remaining. Your odds of hitting the card you need are (9/47), or 19.15%. This does seem a bit complicated, but here’s a very easy way of computing your odds. Simply multiply your number of outs times 2 to get the percentage of hitting your one of your outs on the next card. If we had 9 outs again, we would take that times 2 to get 18%. Not exact, but close enough. If we have a flush draw on the flop, we have two cards still to come. In this case, our odds of hitting our flush are taken times 4. Here, we have roughly a 36% chance of hitting our flush in the next two cards.
Practice makes perfect in regards to counting your outs. Here are two of the more common outs calculations that appear.“open-ended” straight draw: you hold 9 10, and the board reads J Q 2. We will most likely win the hand if we hit an 8 or a K. 8 outs. Flush draw: 9 outs Make sure you know these and their odds of happening. A good example is given at just play texas hold ‘em. This will help you very much when you calculate pot odds, which will be the topic of part 3 of the Odds Series. First, we will take a look at certain hands and how they fare against other hands.


One Response to “Poker Odds - Part 1 - Odds”

  1. Hold Em Authority » Tournament Hand Selection says:

    […] . Next, a must for the serious poker player: odds. All shapes and forms of odds… get out your calculator. […]

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