Question on correct number of outs.
 

The following excerpt was taken from Paul Philips Blog -

Next time barry was UTG he opened for 600 and was flat called by another player. I put in another 400 from the BB with 76o. After a flop of 7s6c4s I checked, he bet 1100, I moved it in. He didn't look real thrilled about it but after doing some calculations he called another 3500ish with T9o, thinking he had ten outs instead of four. I received my signed copy of his book. Man, it's HEAVY. It should be called "poker aces and back problems."

Excuse my stupidity but why is there only four outs? There are four 8's but wouldn't runner runner 10, 10 or 9,9 also be outs for Barry? How about 10,9? What am I missing?

Re: Question on correct number of outs.
 

These runner runner outs (where you have to hit two cards) are seldom worth a full out. Note he could also hit 10 and 4 and 9 and 4 for a weirdly better two pair.

In the case of backdoor flush draws you can give a full out for both cards hitting because their are 9 and 8 cards to choose from. Here you have 6 cards and then 5, so it's worth maybe half an out. Usually, you can just ignore these back door outs in your calculations (not really true in limit hold'em).

Re: Question on correct number of outs.
 

Thank you...

Re: Question on correct number of outs.
 

An "out" is generally considered to be a single card which will improve your hand to the best hand, so in this case, the four 'eights' are the only single cards which do this. Now if a nine or ten were to hit the turn, this would increase his number of outs to 12, but as of the flop it's correct to say he only has four outs.