Example One
If you hold two suited cards and the flop brings two other cards of the same suit, you have a four-card flush. There are 13 cards in each suit. You have four of them, meaning that there are nine left in the deck. This means that you have nine "outs" to make your flush. With two cards to come, you have a 34.97 percent chance of making a flush. The odds are 1.86 against you making it. After the turn, with only one card to come the odds are 4-to-l against you.

Example Two
You have an unsuited Queen and Ten and the flop is A-9-8 rainbow (all different suits); you have an inside straight draw. The turn card is a "blank" which means it is no help to your hand. If you perceive that your opponent has a pair of Aces, you will need to make a straight to beat your opponent. There are four unseen Jacks that will give you a straight. You have four outs to make your hand. With one card to come you have an 8.7 percent chance of making it and the odds are 10.5-to-l against you.

Example Three
You have the King and Jack of hearts. The flop is Queen of clubs, Ten of hearts and 2 of hearts. You have nothing at this point but you have an open-ended straight draw. You can get one of the four Aces or one of the four 9s left in the deck for a total of eight outs. You also have a four-card flush giving you an additional seven outs for a total of 15 outs. There are nine hearts left in the deck but you have already counted the Ace and nine of hearts for your straight draw. With 15 outs you have a 54.1 percent chance of making a straight or a flush. The odds against you are only 0.81-to-l, which means you have a pretty good chance of drawing a winning hand.

The math used to determine the percentages and odds of making a hand is not difficult if you have a strong math background, but I found the calculations a little difficult to do without the benefit of a calculator. Let's take a look at the flush draw. You have four cards to the flush after the flop. You know there are 13 cards of each suit. You have four of them, which means there are nine remaining in the deck. You have two cards in your hand and there are three cards that were flopped so there are 47 cards remaining in the deck.
First we determine the odds for not making this hand. You have two chances to make the flush with the turn card or river card. For the turn you subtract the nine flush cards from 47 and you get 38 / 47. For the river you subtract nine from the 46 remaining cards to give you 37/46. Multiply 38/47 * 37 /46 = 1406/2162 = .65 or 65 percent of not making a flush. Subtract 65 from 100 and you see there is a 35 percent chance of making a flush.
I know that I am not capable of figuring odds like when I'm sitting at the table. So one of the alternatives would be to memorize a chart for all the outs. The Out Chart shows you percentages and odds for each number of outs after the flop with two cards to come and after the turn with one card to come.

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If you were trapped in a burning building and there was only one way out, your odds of survival would not be very good. If there were two ways out, your odds would greatly improve. Your odds of survival would improve with each additional way out of the building.
In poker your outs are the unseen cards that will complete or improve your hand to make it the winning hand. Each additional card or "out" will improve your percentage of surviving the hand and coming out a winner. I'm not trying to compare playing a poker hand with a being trapped in a burning building. (Although some people might feel that way.) I just want you to view outs as your indicator of success or failure when determining whether or not to continue with a hand.

Your skills at reading your opponents and reading the board are important when figuring your outs. You need to assess your opponents' hands and try to determine what they may have. Your perception of their hands will form the basis for deciding what you need to beat them. You then need to read the board and determine which cards will give you the winning hand. The cards that you determine can improve your hand to a winner will be your outs. You can figure your odds of improving your hand once you determine your number of outs. Unfortunately, knowing your number of outs and the percentages for making a hand will not be much help if you do not read your opponent's hand correctly. Your opponent may have a hand that you can't beat even if you complete your hand. This known as drawing to a dead hand and was covered in the previous chapter.

Reading your opponent's hand is a skill that you need to develop. You will become more proficient with experience. It is not an exact science and you will be wrong many times. This should not stop you from trying. Each time you play a hand you must consider the strength of your hand in relation to the cards on the board and what hand your opponent could be holding. You then figure the percentage for improving your hand based on the number of outs you have.
Some hands, such as a four-card flush are fairly common and you will easily remember your outs for that hand. Other hands are less common and will take a little thought on your part. Let's take a look at a few examples to help show you how to determine your outs.

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My late grandfather Bill Ferguson was one of the greatest card players I've ever known. He wasn't a high-stakes player but he loved cards and played just about every card game imaginable. He was skilled at every game he played and was as proficient at Poker as he was at Cribbage or Bridge. Besides his love of cards, he loved people and he had an uncanny ability to read people as well as he could read the cards on the table.

Combining these two talents made him a formidable opponent to anyone challenging him to a game of cards. In a cribbage match, he would have his opponent's hand counted for them before half the cards were played. In poker, he could spot a bluff or calculate the pot odds with a quick glance. His "poker face" consisted of a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. This threw off more opponents trying to read him, as they could never tell what lay beneath that happy exterior. His love of cards spawned some of the metaphors that he used in daily life. One expression in particular that he used to say amused me as a young child. Pop would often see something he liked and say; "Now that's the nuts!" I would laugh but I was confused why he thought something nice was nutty. One day I asked him why he called things he liked nutty.

He looked at me and said, "When you play poker and have a hand that can't be beaten it's called the nuts. So when I say something is the nuts it means it's the best there is." A few years later when he taught me to play poker I finally understood the relevance of that term.
When you are playing Texas Hold'em you should be able to look at the cards on the board and determine "the nuts."

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There will be situations when you may be better off checking. If you miss your draw but have overcards that could win if others missed as well, a check is in order. If a scare card comes, and you know that a player will only call your bet if they know they can beat you, then you should check. This will save you a bet.

Watch the Action
If you are a tight aggressive player you will not be seeing the river too often. Most of the time you will be watching from the sidelines— "watching" being the key word here. You should be paying attention to the game even when you are not involved in hand. It is extremely important to be watching the play on the river. This is when the players will be showing their starting hands. This will help you determine the caliber of player you are up against, since you will be able to determine who is playing solid hands and who is playing with the "any-two" mentality.

In low-limit games you will be drawn out on the river more than in higher limit games. This is a reality and a fact of life. Don't get upset when this happens. In the long run you will win more with solid play than the player who constantly bucks the odds.

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You should always look closely at the river card and try to determine how it could help someone's hand. If everyone checks on the turn, and there is a bet from early position when a third suited card falls, you can be pretty sure you are up against a flush. If the board pairs on the turn, it could give someone a full house. Because of the any Ace mentality in low-limit games, you should also be cautious when an Ace comes up on the river.

A player with a small pair and Ace kicker could have made two pairs. Many times a player who has lead all the way with top pair will lose to a pair of Aces on the river. Another situation that involves an Ace appears when a fourth suited card falls on the river. If a player has a small flush, many times he loses out when the fourth suit makes the nut flush for a player with the suited Ace.

The more players you are up against, the more likelihood that the river card has helped someone. If you are first to act against only one player, you can bet out and give the impression that the scare card has helped you. Sometimes this may be enough to convince the player to fold if the card was no help to them.

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In low-limit games the pots can get very large. You have a lot of players seeing the flop and many staying to see the turn. By the time the river card is dealt, you will probably be getting the correct odds to call with any hand that has a possibility of winning. Look at this example. You are in a $3/$6 game and you get to the river and there is $60 in the pot and you are last to act.

There are two other players still active in the hand. Before any betting takes place you are getting 10-to-l odds. If the first player bets there is now $66 in the pot. The second player calls and brings the pot up to $72. It will cost you $6 to call as well. You are now getting 12-to-l odds for your call. If you made this same call 13 times and lost 12 times but won once you would be even. You would lose $6 in 12 attempts or $72 when you lost, but would win $72 when you won. If you were to win this bet once in 12 tries, you would be ahead of the game by $6. When in doubt it is better to call than fold on the river.

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When you get to the river there are two mistakes that you can make. One is to call a bet, which will cost you the price of a bet. The other is to fold your hand, which will cost you all the money in the pot. Obviously, folding your hand will be a far more costly mistake than merely calling a bet.

It is said that a good Hold'em player earns about one big bet an hour. If you call and lose, you could be giving up an hour's profit. If you fold a winning hand, you are giving up many hours worth of profit. This is not to say that you should never fold when you are beaten. However, if there is a chance that you could win, then most of the time you will be justified in calling on the river. The reason to make the call comes down again to pot odds.

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