Poker Lesson 23: Calculating Hand Odds

Sometimes when you are looking at your cards along with the flop, you mind starts to wander to exactly what your chances are of making the hand that you are striving for. Usually terms like "A snowballs chance in hell", "A cold day in hell", or some equally colorful metaphor that involves that place were the guy with the pitchfork and pointy tail conducts his business. There are better and more accurate ways to calculate the odds than just uttering some clich? and leaving it at that.

Hand odds are the chances that you will actually make your hand in a game of Texas Holdem. First, a quick review on odds themselves; If your odds of hitting a particular hand are 2-to-1, than you will get that hand one out of every three times. Three-to-one will be one out of every four times, and so on and so on.

Before you can start calculating your hand odds, you first need to know how many outs your hand has. Outs are the cards in the deck that could potentially help you complete your hand. For example, if you hold AK of spades and have two spades are revealed on the flop, which leaves 9 more spades in the deck, since there are 13 cards of each suit. This means that there are 9 cards (or outs) that can help you complete your flush.

There is no guarantee that the other 9 spades are in the deck though. It is entirely possible that some of those cards are in your opponents hands. If you know for sure there is a spade in your opponent's hand, you will have to count that against your total odds. In other words there are only 8 spades in the deck that can help you. You obviously can't know every card in the other person's hand, so all you can do is make your calculations based on the knowledge you have. So your basically doing the calculations as if you were the only person at the table. Under this condition, there are 9 spades left in the deck. When calculating outs, it's also important not to overcount your odds. An example would be a flush draw in addition to an open straight draw.

A good illustration of this is you hold Jd Td and the board shows 8d Qd Ks. A Nine or Ace gives you a straight (8 outs), while any diamond gives you the flush (9 outs). However, there is an Ace of diamonds and Nine of diamonds, so you don't want to count these twice toward your straight draw and flush draw. The true number of outs is actually 15 (8 outs + 9 outs - 2 outs) instead of 17 (8 outs + 9 outs).

In addition to this, sometimes an out for you really isn't a true out. An example would be chasing an open ended straight draw when two of another suit are on the table. In this regard, where you would normally have 8 total outs to hit your straight, 2 of those outs will result in three to a suit on the table. This makes a possible flush for your opponents. As a result, you really only have 6 outs for a nut straight draw. Another more complex situation is as follows:

You hold J8 and the flop comes 9TJ rainbow (all of a different suit). To make a straight, you need a Queen or 7 to drop, giving you 4 outs each or a total of 8 outs. You have to look at the situation if a Queen drops, because the board will then show 9TJQ. This means that anyone holding a King will have made a King high straight, while you hold the beaten Queen high straight.

So, the only card that can really help you is the 7, which gives you 4 outs, or the equivalent of drawing to and hitting an inside straight. While it's true that someone might not be holding the King (especially in a short or heads-up game), when a lot of money is on the line, this is a very precarious and tense position to be in.

Now that you know how to calculate the outs, there is a quick and dirty way to figure out the odds that you will draw to your hand.

Once you figure out the number of outs you have, multiply by 4 and you will get a close estimate to the percentage of hitting that hand from the Flop. Multiply by 2 instead to get a percentage estimate from the Turn.

This is by no means an exact science, but it does give you a rough guideline. Hopefully you will find this helpful.