Online Poker Games

Poker Outs and Probabilities

The first poker math exercise you want to learn is how to calculate the odds of drawing a particular card or series of cards needed to make a hand. These cards are called outs, a terms used to describe any card left in the deck that can improve your hand, hopefully to be the winning hand.

The first step in the process is to assess the cards in your hand and figure out the best hand you can possibly make, and which cars you need to draw to make the hand. For example, if you are playing Five Card Stud and are dealt a 5, 6, 8, and 9, you have four cards to a straight. With one card to come, you might make a pair, but the absolute best hand you can hope to make is a straight.

To make your straight, you need to be dealt one of the four sevens in the deck; in other words, you have four outs that will complete this hand. The more outs you have, the better your chances of surviving the hand and coming out a winner. In the case above, if one or more of your needed sevens has already been dealt to another player, those cards are no longer "live" and, although you don't know it at all time, your total outs are reduced.

After you calculate your outs for a particular hand, the next step is to translate your outs into a probability, or percent chance you have of making the hand you need to win the pot. You do this in order to help make an informed betting decision.

In the above example, you calculate the odds or probability of being dealt a seven by dividing the number of outs (in this case four) into the total number of cards left in the deck. You have seen 4 of the 52 cards in the deck, so there are 48 cards left that you haven't seen. The odds that will catch a seven on the next card dealt are 4/48. This means you have a one in 12 (1:12) chance of catching that card (also expressed as 11:1 against). Over the long term, for every 12 times you play this hand, you will catch a seven and make the hand one time. Or expressed another way, you will lose with this hand by not catching the seven approximately 11 times for every one time you catch a seven.

These are pretty long shot odds, so you want to make sure enough bets are in the pot to justify chasing this hand. Evaluating a bet against the number of bets already in the pot is also called calculating pot odds. You never want to call a big bet in hopes of winning a little pot. You want to bet money in scenarios that offer you a positive return--not an equal or less return! Second, the more outs you have, the greater overall chance you have of winning the pot.

If you know that there is only one card left in the deck that will give you the winning hand, the pot will most likely need to be huge in order for you to call a bet. However, if you know there are 15 or 18 cards in the deck that will give you the winning hand, you most likely want to be raising the pot because your chances of winning are pretty high.

Many other variable must also be weighed when deciding how best to play a hand, such as how many other players are in the hand and whether the hand you are trying to make will be the game's best hand--otherwise known as nuts--or how likely opponents might be to try to bluff their hands.

The good news is that poker odds charts are very common and most poker players simply begin by memorizing the certain odds for popular poker games and frequent hands.