Poker Outs: Understanding and Counting Outs
Every poker player, from the newest recruit to the grizzled pro, has stared down a card yet to come and tried to calculate the odds in their head. The math behind that moment has a name: counting your outs, the unseen cards that can turn a losing hand into a winning one.
What Exactly Is an Out?
Say you’re holding a hand that’s one card short of a winning combination. The cards left in the deck that would complete it are your ‘outs’: any unseen card that, if drawn, turns your hand into one that’s more likely to win.
Why Outs Matter
Knowing your outs is knowing your odds, and knowing your odds is most of what separates a good decision from a guess. In draw poker, if you have four diamonds, you have nine outs to make a flush: there are 13 diamonds in the deck, and you’ve already seen four. The math gets more interesting with two small pairs. If you need a full house to win, you’ve only got four outs: the two remaining cards of each rank you hold.
Outs in Action: A Real-World Example
You’re playing Texas Hold’em. You’ve got two spades, and two more pop up in the flop. You’ve seen five cards in total, with four being spades. So you’ve got 9 outs for a flush from the 47 cards yet to be drawn. That’s a 9/47 chance to get your flush on the turn. Miss it, and you’re at 9/46 on the river. For a fast approximation, double the number of outs and add one to get roughly the percentage chance to hit on the next card.
Reading the Board, Not Just Your Hand
Poker isn’t played in a vacuum, and your opponents’ hidden cards can complicate an outs calculation that looked clean a second ago. Say the board shows 5♠ K♦ 7♦ J♠, and you’re holding A♦ 10♦. You’ve got at least nine surefire outs. But cards like 5♦ and J♦, while giving you a flush, also open the door for an opponent to have a full house. That’s the part of the game that separates counting outs from actually playing the hand.
Some Fun Table Talk
- “I had a two-outer” is table talk for a hand where only two cards in the deck could have saved it.
- In poker, terms like “12-way” or “16-way” draw refer to hands where multiple cards can complete the hand, more live cards than a typical draw gives you.
- Calculating combined odds for the turn and river together is a step up in complexity, but it gets automatic with enough hands played.
Blockers
There’s a related concept worth knowing alongside outs: ‘blockers’. A blocker is a card in your hand that reduces the likelihood of your opponent holding a specific hand. It matters for reading your own hand strength and for predicting what your opponents might be holding.
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If you’re holding the Ace of Spades in a game where a flush is possible on the board, you know none of your opponents can have the nut flush, and their odds of having a flush at all are reduced. Or say you have a pair of Tens and a Ten appears on the flop: three of the four Tens in the deck are now accounted for, which cuts down the chance an opponent is sitting on Ace-Ten. It matters most in close spots, where knowing what’s less likely is nearly as useful as knowing what’s likely.
Blockers work on offense too. Knowing which strong hands you’re blocking can justify an aggressive play, since your opponent is less likely to be holding the hand that would call you.
Outs tell you what your hand can become. Blockers tell you what your opponents’ hands probably aren’t.
The Power of Outs
Counting outs is a foundational piece of poker strategy, the difference between playing a hand blind and playing it with actual information. It won’t win you the pot by itself. But the next time you’re staring down a card that hasn’t come yet, you’ll know exactly what you’re waiting on, and exactly how likely it is to show up.
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About the Author: Shawn Altbaum has been writing and editing in the online gaming industry since 2007, reporting live from the WSOP Main Event and conducting interviews with professional players. An active poker player, he combines industry expertise with firsthand knowledge of the games he covers. He currently serves as Global Head of Copywriting at NSUS Group, overseeing brand voice and content strategy across GGPoker and GGVegas.
