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Outs & Douts

How many Outs do I have?

How many outs you have is a key in determining whether you have the odds to call or not. Outs are merely how many cards are left in the deck that can help you. Being able to work these out quickly can be very handy.

A few good ones to remember:

• If you have a flush draw (4 to a flush) - you have 9 outs. There are 13 cards in each suit A2345678910JQK, you can see four of them so 13-4 = 9 left.
• Open-ended straight draw - you have 8 outs. Say you have 4567 - any 3 or 8 gives you the straight - there are four 3's and four 8's left so 4+4 = 8 left.
• A gutshot straight draw (or inside as it's known) - you have 4 outs. Say you have 4 5 X 7 8 - any 6 gives you a straight - there are four 6's in the deck so = 4 left.

Texas Holdem Cheat Sheet

The following chart is a Texas Holdem cheat sheet for quickly working out the odds of hitting your card after the flop assuming you know how many outs you have. If you are betting the flop, use the Drawing 2 Cards column as you have 2 cards left to come. If you are betting the river, use the Drawing 1 Card column because you only have the river left to hit.

Probabilities are given as a ratio of Losses : Wins. E.g. drawing to six outs on the flop is a ratio of 3:1, or in other words you will miss three times for every one time you win.

Download as PDF: Texas-Holdem-Cheat-Sheet.pdf (185Kb)

Number Of Outs	Equivelant To	Drawing 1 Card On Flop	Drawing 2 Cards
20		1.3 to 1	0.5 to 1
19		1.5	0.5
18		1.6	0.6
17		1.8	0.7
16		1.9	0.8
15	flush draw with two over-cards	2.1	0.8
14		2.4	1
13		2.6	1.1
12	flush draw with over-card	3	1.2
11		3.3	1.4
10		3.7	1.6
9	flush draw	4	1.9
8	open ended straight draw	5	2.2
7		6	2.6
6	two over-cards	7	3
5		8	4
4	gut-shot draw	11	5
3		15	7
2	trying to hit a pocket pair	23	11
1	looking for a miracle	46	23

These are needed in order to work out the odds.

Douts

No I haven’t missed the B out!

In a rather poker-esque nutshell a Dout stands for “Discounted Out” – an example will show you what I mean.

If I am drawing to a flush I have 9 outs from the remaining card in the deck. However, what about if 1 or 2 of those outs gives my opponent a full house for example? Now all of a sudden I am effectively drawing dead. So in order to make allowances for this I need to “Discount” my “Outs”

An Example

Let’s take a look at the cards below:

Your Hand	Flop	Turn	River

Let's assume our opponent is holding JJ. If we hit another club on the turn or the river then we make our flush and take down a nice pot by beating his trips.

But wait! We need one more club, and we are claiming that there are 9 outs. What if the 8 of clubs falls? Oops! They have just made a full house and will clean up!

We can’t count the 8 of clubs in our calculation so therefore we no longer have 9 outs but have discounted them down to 8, therefore making us needing 5 to 1 odds rather than 4 to 1.

Now if the turn comes looking like this:

Your Hand	Flop	Turn	River

We now need to discount both the 8 and 2 of clubs, giving us only 7 outs and now needing 6 to 1!

So there you have it – not rocket science but it will help to make you a winner in the long run!