Poker is a game that’s rooted in mathematics and percentages. Other skills like bluffing or reading people play a big hand in poker strategy but the foundation of poker is math.
That being said, you don’t need a genius-level IQ to excel at poker. Plenty of poker tools to make things easier for yourself. Here are some of the most important poker odds and poker outs that you should know before entering any online poker rooms or poker tournaments.
Common Poker Odds & Outs
There are a number of basic poker hands odds that you should know when you are just starting to play Hold’em. These numbers help improve your online poker game.
There’s always going to be more advanced poker math that you can learn but this is a great way to get started for a positive online poker experience. The following poker odds chart illustrates on average how many poker hands it takes for something to happen.
Common Texas Hold’em Match-Ups
When you’re playing Texas Hold’em poker, the goal of the game is to get your money in the middle when you have the best poker odds. Sometimes you will get unlucky and lose a pot where you technically had the best chance. Over the long term, though, you’ll end up a Sportsbook if you consistently get your moneyinto pots in good situations.
Because poker players tend to play strong poker hands like pocket pairs and ace-king suited, you’ll see certain poker hand match-ups more often than others. The chart below looks at the various poker hand match-ups that tend to happen quite frequently:
Common Poker Outs
A poker out is simply any card that makes your poker hand. Below are the outs for some of the most common situations that card players tend to encounter.
- Straight Draws: If you had a straight draw with 9-8 on a 7-6-2 flop then you’d have eight poker outs: 5s-5h-5d-5c or 10s-10h-10d-10c.
- Calculating Win Probability: Poker players use their poker outs to calculate what percentage they have to make the hand and win the pot. In the above example a poker player would have a 31.5% probability to make the straight by the river.
- How Odds Affect Decisions: This can be used to decide when to call. If your opponent makes a huge overbet than 31% doesn’t really warrant a call. If they only make a min-bet then that’s generally an easy call.
- Why Outs Matter in Poker: You want to have a lot of poker outs. The more, the better.
- In Theory vs Real Game Terms: Some of your poker outs won’t exist in practical terms. For instance, if you have king-queen of diamonds vs. someone who has ace-ten of diamonds then you are drawing dead to the flush, because the ace-high plays.
Here’s a chart of the various poker outs situations you might run into:
Calculating the Turn and the River
Once you understand the poker outs that are available to you with one card to go you can then start thinking about the turn and the river.
Most of the time the poker odds are roughly double when you have two cards to go but here’s a complete poker odds chart. As you can see, the poker odds chart displays your exact poker odds for every available amount of poker outs:
We recommend printing this poker odds chart and using it as a source of reference. It should come in very handy.
How to Calculate Your Own Outs
Of course, you don’t need to memorize a poker odds chart if you can just calculate your own poker outs. All you have to do is figure out just how many cards will improve your poker hand.
For instance, if you have 5d5c and you need to improve to a set or quads, the math is quite simple:
- Standard 52-card deck minus your two hole cards = 50 cards
- Of those 50 cards, you have two cards that can improve your poker hand: Either the 5s or the 5c.
That means there are 48 cards that won’t help you and two cards that will. Therefore you have 2 poker outs.
Other players in the game may have folded one of the fives but that’s ignored for the purposes of calculating poker odds.
Here’s a slightly more advanced poker hand:
You have king-jack of diamonds on the turn of a Ad-5s-2d-9s board. The other poker player hit a pair of aces and you need to improve to a flush. How many poker outs do you have?
Advanced Poker Odds and Outs
First of all, you need to reduce the deck down to 46 cards because you have two cards and there are four cards on the board. There are 13 cards of each suit, but you have two cards in your poker hand and there are two more cards on the board.
That means there are nine diamond cards in the deck that will make your flush and win the poker hand. Meanwhile, there are 37 cards that, by default, will help the opposition. That means you are 37-9, or more simply, 4-1 to win. That means you’ll only pull it off 20% of the time so hopefully, you don’t have to pay much to see the river.
You can always use this math to calculate your poker odds. Here’s an extremely simple reference chart to the make-up of the standard 52-card deck:
Should You Call? Basic Pot Odds
When people are just starting to play poker they often get stuck on the decision of whether to call a particular bet or not.
- Experienced Poker Players: Most new poker players make the decision to bet based entirely on what cards they think the other person is holding but more experienced poker players will also calculate the poker odds. The standard formula is referred to as pot odds.
- What are Pot Odds?: Pot odds are basically about deciding whether you are getting a good enough price to call.
- Poker Odds and Outs: An Example: If you have to call $1 to potentially win a $100 pot then you are going to call every time regardless of your poker hand because it’s simply too cheap to fold. Your opposition might be bluffing once in every 100 poker hands.
- Learning to Fold: On the other hand, if you have to pay $75 to win a $175 pot then it’s not a good proposition to call with a weak poker hand.
Calculating Pot Odds on a Draw
This is particularly helpful when you are on draws. Let's take a look at a typical scenario when you're four cards to a draw.
- How Often Will You Win?: For instance, if you are on a straight draw where you have eight poker outs to hit on the river than your poker odds are 38-8, or simplified, 6-1. That means you’ll get there just under 20% of the time.
- Pot Odds on a Draw: Let’s say the pot has $90 in it and the other person just made a bet of $10.
- 10-to-1 Payout: That’s generally an easy call because your odds of hitting are 6-1 and you were just given odds of 10-1 on a call. If you call, the pot is $100. That means you only need to be successful once every 10 times
- 6-to-1 Odds: With your poker hand you should be successful once every six times. The poker odds are in your favor.
- What About a 2-to-1 Payout?: Now if your opponent bet $100 that would be a much dicier proposition. Suddenly you are risking $100 to win $200 and the odds are 200-100, or simplified, 2-1. Since you’re only 6-1 to make your hand you should probably fold.
- Playing a Hunch: Of course, pot odds are just a guideline. You’re totally in your right to make a crazy call if you are 100% certain your opponent has a specific hand. Though it works sometimes, it should not be a strategy.
What Are the Odds Behind the Best Hold’em Hands?
There are five poker hands that are widely considered to be the best in Hold’em. Those poker hands are pair of aces (AA), pair of kings (KK), pair of queens (QQ), pair of jacks (JJ) and AK usually in that order. These poker hands are widely considered the power five in Hold’em and most of the time you’ll be playing these poker hands every time those cards are dealt to you.
There are a large number of poker odds and tips for playing the best poker hands in Hold’em and we’ve actually broken in down in the following standalone articles about each poker hand: