Re: Dead cards and counting outs.
Well, yes, of course most of the time one or more of your flush cards will be in someone else's hand. The point is that this doesn't affect the calculation. When you calculate odds by counting outs, the method takes this possibility into account.
You might want to try the following exercise:
NOTE: P( A | B) = P(event A occuring given that event B has already occureed)
P(make your flush) = P(make your flush | no oppo has an out)*P(no oppo has an out) +
P(make your flush | 1 oppo holds 1 out)*P(1 oppo holds one out) + ...
+ P(make your flush|opponents hold all outs)*P(opponents hold all outs)
The "long way" of doing the calcualtion (the right hand side of the eqtn) will allow you to explicitly factor in the situations that confuse you. You will see that you come out with the same answer as the counting outs method.
gm
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