Winning Chance

In poker everything would be so much easier if you could just see your opponents' cards. Then you'd know if you were ahead or behind and if you could still win by catching the right cards.

But even without mind-reading skills it's actually surprisingly simple to calculate your winning chance in any hand. It's pure math – no magic involved. It's a question of "outs".

Outs are the cards left in the deck that would give you the best hand.

For an example:

You're holding:


The flop comes:


You've picked up an openended straight draw and can now use all the Threes and all the Eights to make a Straight, giving you the best hand possible.
This means you have 8 outs – four Threes and four Eights.

8 cards out of the remaining 47 cards (52 in the deck minus the two on your hand and the three in the flop) will win you the hand, and you have two chances of hitting these 8 cards – the turn and the river.
The exact formula for calculating the probability of one of your 8 outs showing up on the turn or the river is quite complex. But luckily there's much simpler way of figuring out your winning chance in Texas Hold'em.

The method is called "the rule of 4 and the rule of 2", and using this method you can always calculate your winning chance from the number of your outs. And it won't take you more than a couple of seconds.

You simply multiply the number of outs by 2 for each card still to come.
Just how precise this very simple method is becomes apparent when we compare these approximated probabilities to the "real probabilities":
31.45% on the flop and 17.39% on the turn.

Basically all you need is to be able to figure out your outs and in doing so not be too optimistic.
In the example above you could actually be in a situation where none of your opponents are holding an Ace, and then a Seven on the turn or the river could be good enough to win you the hand with a Pair of Sevens.
But be careful not to make too many optimistic assumptions when estimating your outs. If you do, you'll end up awarding yourself way too big a winning chance, and this could cost you.

You want to calculate your winning chance as correctly as possible because doing so helps you make the right decisions at the table – specifically if there's value in calling or raising an opponent's bet.
If you've miscalculated your winning chance, you're bound to make wrong decisions, and in poker wrong decisions tend to get expensive.

The probably most important rule in poker:
Learn more about the equally important math behind calculating your pot odds here:
Pot Odds

Also check out this detailed table of possible outs in our Poker Theory section:
Odds for all Draws


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