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Poker Outs and Percentage Chance of Getting Your Hand
Spuzz
Member Posts: 21
Using a hypothetical situation I have been trying to work out the maximum number of outs that a hand can have. In the example below hole cards and flop have been drawn. Is this the maximum number of outs a hand can have?
Hole cards
J and 7 hearts
Flop
K spades
10 hearts
9 hearts
Using this scenario think I am correct in saying there are 23 potential outs.
3 chances each of making a pair for the J or 7 total 6 outs
4 chances of getting 8 to make a straight total 10 outs
4 chances of getting Q to make a straight total 14 outs
9 chances of getting flush total 23 outs
What I am struggling with is working out the percntage chance of getting 1 of the cards on the turn
or 1 of the cards on the river.
Not in any way suggesting this could be a winning hand or a hand that should be played
Look forward to some assistance with this theory 
Comments
Hi Spuzz,
When you have got your head round that, next you need to grasp "clean outs".
Using your examples, you may hit your heart flush, but you don't have "clean outs", as the A flush or Q flush would both beat you.
The 8 could give someone a bigger straight (JQ, to the K). In fact your straight outs could be dead already to the higher flopped straight. The Q could also give someone the higher Broadway straight if they hold A-Q.
The flush outs could be dead if the board pairs, as that could bring a full house.
So that's something to bear in mind. Obviously, clean outs are better.
I'm not normally good with advice, but I think I can help you out with this one. the advice above is brilliant and should all be bared in mind. however, by the sounds of it your after a way of calculating the percentage chance of winning a hand based on the number of outs you have. So despite being hungover, here it goes...
first of all your numbers are fine up until you count the number of hearts left as outs. you actually only have 7 hearts as outs, not 9, as you have already counted the 8 & Q of hearts in your previous calculations. So the actual amount of outs you have (assuming they are all clean outs) are as follows:-
right, now you have the number of outs, the easiest way of calculating the percentage chance of hitting them outs on the turn or river is using "the rule of four and two".
basically, before the turn, multiply the number of outs you have by 4 to come up with the percentage chance of you hitting one of your cards on either the turn or river. so in your example, the sum would be:-
21 outs x 4 = 84% chance of you hitting one of your outs on the turn or river.
if the turn comes and its a brick (i.e. doesn't help you or the other player) then you still have the same number of outs. now you do the same sum only this time multiply it by 2:-
21 outs x 2 = 42% chance of hitting one of your outs on the river.
this rule never gives the exact percentage, but is always near enough and saves you a lot of time when you have tricky decision to make and the clock is running.
there's a video describing this rule on the skypoker website as well:- https://www.skypoker.com/secure/poker/sky_lobby/poker-strategy/rule-of-four-and-two?dcmp=p_stratleftnav_fourandtwo
hope this helps
... right, now wheres that alka seltzer?
^^^^
That's a good post Smiley.
We don't need to be exact in these things, especially as we are just guessing at what our opponent holds, so we should keep it simple.
If we are 4 to the nut straight on the flop, then we have 8 clean outs, so 8 x 4 = 32%. On the turn, that decreases to 16% (8 x 2).
With 4 to the flush on the flop, we are 36% (4 x 9) & 18% (2 x 9).
If we have 4 to the straight AND 4 to the flush, now we have a hand to go to war with, as we could have 17 outs here, and that excludes our one pair & two pair hands.
Hopefully, SPUZZ will find some of this useful.