Soloman's Formula (from HOH Volume 2)

[ChipLeader]

On page 201 of Harrington on Hold 'Em, Volume 2, a reference is made to Soloman's formula to figure out where you are at in a hand.

You multiply outs by 4, then subtract the excess of the outs above 8 to get an approximate win %.

I dont get the formula, neither in concept or practice. Since i dont really need to understand WHY it works, so long as it can be verified, i just need to know what the second part means.

In the example we have 15 outs, so:
(4 x 15) - (15 - 8), it is the (15-8) portion i dont understand. Is it always -8? If we have 9 outs would it be:
(4 x 9) - (9 - 8)?