Hidden Outs Revisited
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Learning to count outs well is a critical skill for any aspiring poker player. Many outs are easy to see. If you have a flush draw, the cards of your suit are outs. If you have overcards, your pair cards are outs. Oftentimes, though, there are cards that improve your hand that tend to “hide” so you don’t notice them on first glance. I call these “hidden outs,” and a few years ago I devised a series of 10 exercises to see how many people correctly counted all the outs. I got about 50 responses, and if I remember correctly, only one person got all 10 exercises right. It’s trickier than it looks.
I figured I’d reprise with 10 more hidden outs exercises. Read them carefully, then give your answers in the comments. Each hand takes place on the turn. The hand in the first column has to draw out on the hand in the second one. Count how many river cards will make the first hand a winner and how many will give it a chop. That’s all there is to it.
Here’s an example:
| 0. | A |
5 |
T |
The first hand is an overpair of aces. The second is two pair, fives and fours. So the second hand is currently ahead (as it will be in every example). The aces have 8 outs to a win: 2 aces make trip aces, and 3 tens and 3 eights make aces up. There are no outs to a chop.
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Tags: counting-outs, hidden-outs, limit-holdem, no-limit-holdem, poker, Reading the Board

1.
Win 3xK, 2xA = 5
Chop 3×9 = 3
2.
win 3×2 = 3
Chop 3xJ, 3×9, 3×3 = 9
3.
Win 4×5, 3×2 = 7
Chop 3×3, 3×4 = 6
4.
Win 3xQ, 3xT, 3x, 1xA = 10
Chop 6c, 8c, 9c, Jc, Kc = 5
5.
Win 3xA 3xQ 3XJ = 9
Chop 3×8 = 3
6.
Win 3×4 = 3
Chop 2xK 2×2 = 4
7.
Win 1×3 2×9 = 3
Chop
8.
Win 4xA, 4×6, 3×3 = 11
Chop 3×2, 3×5 = 6
9.
Win 3×3 = 3
Chop 3xT 3×4 4xK 4xQ 4xJ = 18
10.
Win 2×2 = 2
Chop 2xA, 2xJ, 4xK, 4xQ, 4xT, 4×9, 4×8, 4×7, 4×6, 4×5, 4×4 = 40