Wouldn’t it be great if you could count your opponents’ outs?
Serious players know full well the importance of counting outs: How many cards remaining in the deck will help your opponent’s hand become a winner?
We use the number of outs to estimate the card odds: What are the chances of improving our hand so we can expect to take the pot at the showdown? Compare this with the pot odds—the ratio of the money in the pot to the amount you have to invest to stay in. There’s been a bet on the turn. Should you call? If the pot odds are more than the card odds against you, it’s a positive expectation bet. Counting your outs makes it possible to decide.
What if you could count your opponents’ outs? What a great edge that would give you! Your decisions would be more accurate. Suppose you had a middle pair and a draw to an inside straight on the turn. Several opponents with drawing hands were staying to see the river; and they had 20 outs among them. Then your nine outs to make trips, two-pair, or a straight would be a big underdog unless there was a huge pot promised for the winner. The difference in outs would suggest you fold and save a bet or more. But that’s asking too much. We don’t know how many outs our opponents have.
What’s the Alternative? Well, you can do almost as well by simply observing how many opponents are still in the pot. If there are four or more opponents to see the turn, you need to have a very strong hand to take it to the next step. It’s also true for the next betting round. The more opponents staying in, the more total outs you can expect them to have against you—if no one already has a made hand. If you choose not to fold, examine the board before deciding whether to bet or raise to force out some opponents along with their outs.
Another Example. You called pre-flop from a late position with 8c-Kd; four opponents stayed in and there were no raises. The flop was—
Qh-Ks-7s
Now you have top pair but the board is coordinated. An opponent could easily have a draw to a straight or a spade flush. In this case, with top pair, you would be wise to bet out if it’s checked to you, or raise if there is a bet before it’s your turn to act—unless it’s a tight player making the bet, who could have a pair of kings with a bigger kicker.
Your objective is to force out opponents in order to reduce the number of outs against you. Sure, you have no idea how many outs each opponent has, but with four others in the pot, their total number of outs is bound to be significant. Every one you eliminate improves the chance that your pair of kings will hold up to take the pot. Consider that you have only five outs—two kings and three 8s—so your chance of further improving your hand is not attractive. With a coordinated board, if an opponent catches a card to help his hand, you may be in serious trouble.
Assuming none of your opponents is holding a better hand than yours, it’s a matter of how many outs your opponents have. The more outs they possess, the more likely someone will catch a card to beat you. Counting the number of opponents staying in the pot is almost as good as counting their outs.
. . . So readers, what’s YOUR opinion?
George “The Engineer” Epstein is the author of The Greatest Book of Poker for Winners! and Hold’em or Fold’em?—An Algorithm for Making the Key Decision and teaches poker at the Claude Pepper Sr. Citizen Center in Los Angeles. Contact George at geps222@msn.com.
