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Poker Odds And Assessing Your Outs
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Author: Marc Weinberg
I find it interesting that nearly all poker players work out their draws based on the best-case scenario, and that poker odds in general tend to err on the side of optimism. I'd like to propose that we reconsider how to evaluate the true number of outs, particularly in a full game.
For instance, we'll start with the most typical example that confronts players chasing a hand. They hold two suited cards and two cards of that suit hit the board on the flop. A lot of players can calculate their odds of making the flush, and those odds are generally held to be about 1 in 3. But let's say they were in a full ten-handed game, which means that another eighteen cards were dealt out that they don't know about. I'm not a statistician, but I play one on the Internet - just kidding, but still, surely the reasonable assumption is that of those eighteen cards that you cannot see at least four were also of your suit?
Instead of having nine outs to make your flush, or a 35% chance to win the hand, isn't it more reasonable to assume that you have five outs to make your flush, or closer to a 20% chance? I'm happy to stand corrected if I have made some garish and obvious mathematical error here, but it seems to me that the difference between betting a 3:1 shot and a 5:1 shot are pretty significant.
Bear in mind that I'm not talking about short-handed play or heads-up play, and it is the latter scenario that seems to be the model for all these poker odds that I see bandied about in various books and articles. In that case you'd be correct to assume that you had 9 outs, or at worst 8 outs for your flush. But in a full-handed game that simply shouldn't be the case. It is imperative for good players to work out their odds of hitting a hand, at least in an approximate manner for only then can they determine if the pot odds or implied pot odds with betting yet to come justifies staying in the hand.
I also find it amusing that poker players tend to look at their draws optimistically, so that they often calculate that if they make their draw they are guaranteed to win. There are many instances, however, when you hit your flush only to find it beaten by a higher flush (those suits are out there in other hands, and it is folly to assume that your hearts and the hearts on the board are the only hearts in play) or rendered useless when the board pairs to give someone a full house.
Poker is not an exact science by any means, and you have to make a number of assumptions in any given hand. That gives poker an aspect of creativity and excitement that cannot be matched by any other game, but that doesn't mean that out calculations should be far-fetched and optimistic to the point of inaccuracy, does it?
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