Counting Outs

[Tremaine]

I have been playing for a few months and read through a couple books including SSH from Miller. It seems that one of the important skills is to be able to count outs properly and value them correctly. However, this is proving to be tough for me. What is the best method for practicing this skill? Are there methods you can suggest to make it easier? Are there common outs that are easy to remember? Etc.

Your input is greatly appreciated.

[CT11]

Yah I have a few common situations memorized and I subtract bad outs from that. For example a flush draw gives 13-4=9 outs but if I'm sure for some reason some one has a set then I subtract the outs that will make him a full house.

A better example is say I made middle pair but am likely beat. I know I have 5 outs ( 2 for trips 3 for two pair) but say I know some one is on a flush draw. I can subtract any of those 5 outs which are of the same suit of the draw. If none of my 5 outs contains those suits then I have 5 if one or two of my 5 outs contains that suit i have 4 or 3 outs.

Just keep playing it gets easier. Also always pay attention. If I go into "auto mode" some times I'll miss that a few of my outs are bad. So never think you have it all figured out and you'll be ok.

Hope that helps some.

~CT11

[SoaringAngle]

Just keep playing and constantly pay attention to the flop and all backdoor draws you have, they can be easy to miss. But remember to not subtact a whole out if say it gives you a straight but puts a 3-flush on the board. YOu dont take off a whole out because its possilbe no one has the flush, but you do not count it for a full out. You would probably put it at .5 to a full out.

[Cooker]

Also, back door flush draws are probably worth an extra out at the flop and an open ended three straight is worth about 1 out also at the flop (assuming it can make the full range of straights which KQJ for instance cannot). A one gap 3 straight is worth about 0.5 outs (same considerations about number of possible straights as above).

And as other posters said, outs that might be tainted, should probably be considered at half value (this was the only sentence I didn't end with a comment in parenthesis, so I added this). For instance, if you have an open ended straight draw with a 2 flush on the board, you should only count the outs that make a 3 flush on the board at about half value, but it is usually pretty obvious when someone makes a flush (so obvious in fact that I have wondered if I could represent it with a bluff in a heads up pot and add a little extra profit to busted OESDs).