- Poker Outs and Pot Odds. Having an understanding of outs and pot odds is essential for a player to understand simply because a player can then make a decision based on how likely it is they will improve to a better hand in relation to how much they hope to receive for the risk in attempting to do so.
- Poker odds can be used to assess whether your play has a positive expectation if you know the basic chart of ‘outs’ that will improve your hand. A Full Outs Chart is Below - Here are the most common poker outs: 4 Cards to a Flush with 2 cards to come: Odds = 1.9/1 (35%) 4 Cards to a Flush with 1 card to come: Odds = 4.1/1 (19%).
- Chances of catching 1 of N outs post flop. Note: No need to memorize this table, these percentages can be estimated rather easily. Multiply outs x 4 to estimate catching on the turn or river, and multiply outs x 2 to estimate catching exactly on the turn or exactly on the river.
- Poker is Outs and Pot Odds As with honing any skill, practice makes perfect. Once you are able to accurately calculate your outs you will be able to correctly determine the pot odds you require to continue with a hand. And once you have that down, you've pretty much mastered poker.
For instance if you are on a straight draw where you have eight poker outs to hit on the river than your poker odds are 38-8, or simplified, 6-1. That means you’ll get there just under 20% of the time. Let’s say the pot has $90 in it and the other person just made a bet of $10.
Part #2 Of Our Beginners Poker Tournament Guide
Poker Odds, Outs and Expectation All Clearly And Concisely Explained!
Poker odds are a critical factor in success in online poker tournament strategy. While alone information on odds and outs will not make a player an instant winner, this knowledge will certainly give them an instantly profitable advantage over those players who do not understand these simple poker concepts correctly.
A good way to begin looking at poker odds and outs is in terms of expectation. During any game of poker we will be faced with a number of ‘bets’ at various prices. When you bet with the odds in your favor then you have a positive expectation. That is to say that regardless of the outcome of any particular hand you will show a profit over time. If you bet or call when the odds are against you then your wagers have a negative expectation, that is you will lose money over time.
The most commonly referenced form of poker odds are known as ‘Pot Odds’. This describes the price you are getting when calling a bet from an opponent compared to the current amount of money already in the pot.
For example, if the total pot - including your opponent’s last bet - was $100 and you had to call a $20 bet then your current pot-odds are exactly 5/1. Pot odds are useful when working out whether your call has a positive expectation. In this example, assuming this was the final bet of the hand, then you simply need to work out whether you have a greater than 20% (1 in 5) chance of winning the hand. If you think this is the case then calling will show a profit over time if you think your chances are lower then calling will lose money over time and your hand should be folded.
Pot-Odds can also be used before the last card is dealt. Imagine you have King-Jack of spades and by the time the turn card is dealt there are 2 other spades showing. With 1 card to come you are sure that hitting a spade will win the hand for you. In this situation you need to compare the pot-odds being offered to your chances of winning the hand. In this case you are approximately 4.5/1 against hitting that last spade (see ‘outs chart’ below for more information on this).
Thus if you are getting better than 4.5/1 odds from the pot then calling will show a profit over time. If you are getting less than this price then calling will lose money over time and you should not usually call the bet.
Looking at the current odds that you are getting by calling a bet leaves out one very important factor. You may be able to win one or more additional bets after the last card has been dealt. This is especially significant in No-Limit Holdem Tournaments where you can bet any amount you like. The additional bets you might win if you make your flush (for example) are known as the Implied-Odds and need to be factored into your expectation.
To return to the King-Jack of spades example, the pot-odds after the turn has been dealt there is $30 in the pot and your opponent bets $10 more. Here you are getting odds of 4/1 with a 4.5/1 of completing your flush, pot-odds alone indicate a negative expectation from this bet. However after the river, if you do make your flush by hitting that last spade then you estimate that your opponent will call an additional $20 bet. Your implied odds are now the $30 in the pot + $10 bet from your opponent + $20 on the river for a total of $60. This means that the real odds of your $10 call on the turn were 6/1. If you take 6/1 odds on a 4.5/1 chance then you will show a profit each time – you will have a positive expectation for the bet.
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What are Poker ‘Outs’ and how are they calculated?
During the play of any hand there are a number of the unseen cards left in play that will improve your hand, and a number that will not. Any card that will improve your current holding is known as an ‘out’. Any hand that is not yet complete, for example 4 cards to a flush or 4 cards to a straight, is known as a ‘drawing hand’ or just ‘draw’. Poker odds can be used to assess whether your play has a positive expectation if you know the basic chart of ‘outs’ that will improve your hand.
A Full Outs Chart is Below - Here are the most common poker outs:
- 4 Cards to a Flush with 2 cards to come: Odds = 1.9/1 (35%)
- 4 Cards to a Flush with 1 card to come: Odds = 4.1/1 (19%)
- 4 Cards to a Straight with 2 cards to come: Odds = 2.2/1 (32%)
- 4 Cards to a Straight with 1 card to come: Odds = 4.7/1 (17%)
- Inside Straight Draw, 2-3-5-6, 2 cards to come: Odds = 4/1 (20%)
- Inside Straight Draw, 2-3-5-6, 1 card to come: Odds = 10/1 (10%)
As you gain experience in using poker odds and outs you will be able to quickly calculate your winning chances using simple math. After the flop in Holdem there are 5 cards which you have seen – and so 47 unseen cards. You calculate the number of cards that will help your hand out of those unseen cards and then divide this number by 47. For example if you calculate that 10 cards will improve your hand then (10/47) = 4.7/1 odds which is approximately 21% winning chance, with 2 cards to come then doubling the winning chances is close enough for most situations. Learning the most common outs from the chart below will help you make good decisions during a hand – remember that if you take positive expectation bets you will show a profit over time!
Number of Outs | 2 cards | ||
% | % | ||
1 | 46/1 | 22.5/1 | You Have Trips, Make Quads |
4,26% | 8,42% | You have a pair, make trips | |
3 | 14.7/1 | 7.01/1 | You hold 1 ace, make a pair of aces |
8,51% | 16,47% | You have 2-3-5-6, hit a 4 for inside straight | |
5 | 8.40/1 | 3.91/1 | |
12,77% | 24,14% | ||
7 | 5.71/1 | 2.59/1 | |
17,02% | 31,45% | You have 3-4-5-6, hit 2 or 7 for straight | |
9 | 4.22/1 | 1.86/1 | You have 4 to a flush, make flush |
21,28% | 38,39% | ||
11 | 3.27/1 | 1.40/1 | |
25,53% | 44,96% | You have 4 to flush + an ace, make either flush or A-A | |
13 | 2.61/1 | 1.08/1 | |
29,79% | 51,16% | ||
15 | 2.13/1 | 0.85/1 | You have 4 to flush and open-ended straight, make either hand |
34,04% | 56,98% | ||
17 | 1.76/1 | 0.67/1 | |
38,30% | 62,44% | ||
19 | 1.47/1 | 0.54/1 | |
42,55% | 67,53% | ||
21 | 1.24/1 | 0.43/1 | You have open ended straight flush + 2 overcards |
SNG Planet Tip: A quick way of calculating your chances of making a hand after the flop (with 2 cards to come) is the ‘Rule of 4’ – Simply Multiply the number of cards to make your hand by 4! For example if you have 4 to a flush on the flop then there are 9 unseen cards of your suit that will make your hand… 9*4 = 36% which is very close to the 34.97% shown on the outs chart above! With just one card to come you multiply by 2 instead.
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Related Articles
Although poker is a game of facial expressions, intuition and mind reading, it’s also a game largely based on math. You’ll use math in every aspect of the game, from cash to sit n goes to tournaments. So it makes sense to learn some the basic math concepts if you want to get any good. And the first place I recommend you start is learning about outs and pot odds.
What Are Poker Outs?
The best definition for poker outs is that they are the cards left in the deck that will improve your hand.
For example, say that you had 98s on a flop of JT2 rainbow. What cards will improve your hand?
Well, you know that a 7 or a Q will improve your hand to a straight. There are four suits to a deck of cards, so that would mean that there are four 7s and four Qs. There are eight cards that will improve your hand, or eight outs.
So, why not a 9 or an 8? Why not consider these cards as outs?
These cards are not considered outs because with two over cards on the flop it’s very likely that a 9 or an 8 as a pair would not be the best hand. Not only that, but a 9 or an 8 would complete other drawing hands. So we don’t want to include cards as outs that won’t necessarily be to the best hand.
Something else that you don’t want to do is discount outs. In other words, assume that your opponent has cards, such as a 7 or a Q, leaving you with less than eight outs. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t or haven’t seen it (the cards you want to discount), then include it in your outs. Besides, we’re just looking for a good guestimate, it doesn’t need to be perfect.
Poker Odds Table Outs
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Turning Outs Into Percentages and/or Odds
Now, counting outs isn’t all there is to it. Outs are better used as odds or percentages. The reason why is because when we figure out our pot odds using odds or percentages instead of outs will make it easier and faster for us to do our math and make a decision.
There are a couple of ways to do this.
One way is to use the 2/4 rule. Using this rule, you would take the number of outs that you have and multiply it by two if you only plan on seeing one street, and multiplying your outs by four if you plan on seeing two streets. Then add 1%. For example, if we know that we have eight outs, then using the 2/4 rule we’d know that we are 17% to hit our hand over one street and 33% over two streets. These numbers aren’t exact, but if you run them in a calculator you’ll find that they are very close.
The second way to turn your outs into odds is to do some quick math. Now, you know there are 52 cards in a deck, right? If we know that there are eight cards that will improve our hand, then that would leave 44 cards that won’t. We also see three cards on the flop and two cards in our hand. So all in all, we know that there are 39 cards in the deck that won’t help us (or are unavailable). So what we do now is divide the number of cards left in the deck that won’t help us, which is 39, by the number of outs that we have, which is eight, and that will give us our ratio (or odds). This gives us 4.875, which is also read as 4.875 to 1. Doing it this way our percentage is about 17% which is exactly the same as doing the 2/4 rule.
I highly recommend using the 2/4 rule just because you’ll find that faster and more convenient when you are trying to also figure out ranges and pot odds, not to mention figuring this all out while playing on multiple tables.
In this next section I’ll explain a little bit about pot odds, and then I’ll combine pot odds and outs so that you can see how they are used together to make a decision.
What Are Pot Odds?
Pot odds are pretty simple – these are the odds that you get by dividing the amount of money in the pot you stand to win, by the amount of money you need to put up (call) in order to win it. It’ll make more sense using an example.
Okay, say that there is $50 in the pot. Your opponent raises to $150, making the total pot $200. In order for you to win that $200 pot you have to call $150. To figure out your pot odds simply take $200 and divide that by $150, which comes out to 1.3. This is written out as 1.3 to 1. To turn this into a percentage, simply take one and divide it by 2.3 (the total), which would give you 43%.
That’s all there is to pot odds.
Now that you know what poker outs and pot odds are, as well as how to figure out the odds and percentages, I want to show you an example of how you would use both of them together to make a decision.
Poker Outs & Pot Odds Example
So here’s an example of how you would use poker outs and odds. The numbers I use are from my examples above.
Say that you were in the same situation on the flop as listed above. You have eight outs to make the best hand, and any other cards are unlikely to help you. Your opponent just that $150 into a $50 pot, making it $200 total and $150 to you.
We know that we are 17% to hit our hand on the turn. We also know that we have 43% pot odds. As a general rule of thumb, whenever the pot odds are higher than the odds of hitting our hand, it is -EV for us to make the call. Another way to look at it is whenever the odds are higher (or more against us) to hit our hand compared to the odds for making a call (4.8 odds to hit our hand vs. 1.3 to call), then it’s -EV.
So the real question here is, what would make this call break even or profitable?
In order for this call to be profitable, our pot odds needs to be about 15% (or less). The only way we’re going to achieve 15% pot odds is if our opponent bet $10 into the $50 pot. That would make the pot $60, which would mean that we would need to call $10 to win $60 which also reads as 6 to 1. This would give us 14% pot odds. Having to call anything more than $10 would mean that the call is not profitable long-term.
Basic Poker Odds And Outs
Does that make sense?
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Poker Strategy Odds Outs
There Are Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Going into much detail is outside the scope of this article though. But one of the exceptions is taking implied odds into consideration.
In general, using implied odds is making a guess as to how much you might win off your opponent in the situation that you hit your hand. In other words, if you knew that you could win your opponent’s entire stack if you were to hit your straight, then that would improve your pot odds, which would then mean that it’s worth your time to make what seems to be a thin (or bad) call.
Poker Odds Outs Trainer
For example, if your opponent has 1000 chips behind him after making that $150 bet then you could make the assumption that your $150 call is to win $1200 instead of only 200. In that case your odds would be 80 to 1, or a little over 1%. In this case it’s clear that making a call at 16% (remember, if your odds to hit your hand is better than your odds to call) is the right choice.
Keep in mind though, that there are a lot of variables that you must consider before using implied odds. Not to mention that this is simply a guess. If you don’t win his entire stack and all that you get is the (200) chips in the pot, then you technically made a bad call on the flop. So there’s much more to it then thinking you’re going to get his entire stack and then inflating the pot (odds) to justify a bad call.