Counting outs

After the flop, two cards are yours and three are face up, so forty seven remain unseen. Some of them win you the pot. Those are your outs, and the count is the number every price decision from here is built on.

The discipline is in the word winning. A card that gives you second pair when you are up against a set has improved your hand and lost you the same pot. It is not an out. Ask what beats you now, then ask which cards get past it.

Thirteen cards of each suit. Four of them accounted for between your hand and the board leaves nine, so a flush draw is nine outs. An open-ended straight draw is completed by either of two ranks, four cards each, so eight. A gutshot needs one specific rank, so four. Two overcards have three of each left, so six.

Most real hands are these added together, minus whatever gets counted twice. A flush draw with two overcards is not nine plus six, because two of those overcards are hearts you already counted. Add, then subtract the overlap, and you will be right far more often than the people who memorised a table.

The flush card that pairs the board fills somebody a full house. The straight card that puts a third suit out there completes a flush over the top of you. The ace that gives you top pair is the same ace that gives the player who three-bet preflop the best hand at the table.

Discounting is not pessimism, it is the difference between a call that is correct and one that is close to correct in the wrong direction. When you are unsure whether an out is live, count it as half. That is closer to the truth than either extreme.