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Recent Comments15 April 2008
In order to understand poker math, you have to begin with outs. Determining your outs is a relatively simple task and will provide a solid basis for other poker math you will undertake in a given hand.
For example, if you’re holding an A
,K
pre-flop in Texas Holdem and the flop comes down 10
,J
,3
, you have a very strong drawing hand.
Your outs are the cards you will need to make the best possible hand. The best hand with multiple outs you could draw to would be a flush. There are four cards to a flush that have been dealt – that you know of.
Note: You can’t determine what’s actually in your opponents’ hands, so you’ll have to do odds without subtracting what they’re holding.
OK. You have 52 cards in the deck and a total of 13 cards per suit. How many other potential diamonds are out there? The answer is 9. You already know what five cards are, so you can subtract those from the deck, leaving 47 cards. Your chances of making the flush are, therefore, 9 out of 47, or about 1 in 5 which is around 20%.
This isn’t the only hand you can make. That’s the best-case scenario. In order to win this hand, you can catch a Queen for a straight or another Ace or a King for top pair. Now, we have calculated all the diamonds. There are a total of four cards of any kind in one deck. This leaves 3 more Aces, 3 more Kings and 3 Queens unaccounted for. That’s a total of nine more outs.
This raises your odds to 18 out of 47 which is about 35%. Your drawing hand will hit one in three times. If the money you could earn in the hand is more than three times what you put into it, then you have the correct pot odds to play.
Sure, this is an over-simplified method of calculating your odds, but...once you begin thinking like this, you'll make more educated decisions about the hands you choose to play. This will fatten your bankroll exponentially.
Now, those are the kinda odds we like. How about you?
Try out your new odds/outs skills at Bodog Poker. When you sign on to play, you can earn up to 110% back. See BodogPoker for the 4-1-1!
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