After losing a colossal hand at a high stakes table, Mike McDermott in the movie "Rounders" thought to himself how he forgot the cardinal rule: "always leave yourself outs." When it comes to Texas Holdem, he's referring to the yet unseen cards that could help improve or make your winning hand. This also applies to life away from the table, but the "outs" aren't always as easy to determine. When you are playing Texas Holdem you have two cards before the flop that help you decide if you want to stay in the hand or fold. Once the flop is dealt, you now see five of the seven cards that your final hand must be made from. It's about this time that you wish you wouldn't have argued with your mom when she told you to turn off the cartoons and practice your multiplication flash cards. OK, so it's not really that hard to determine the odds of making your winning Texas Holdem hand. Actually, you can get a good estimation using only the two and four multiplication tables.

When the flop is over and the turn awaits, you have only two cards left to make your hand. At this point, your mind starts running through the possible winning scenarios to see what combinations are left for you to hit. Let's say you are holding a Ks and 10s. The flop added a Qs and 6s, plus a 9h. At this point, you are thinking, "I'm on a draw, but the writing is on the wall." You look at your opponents stone-faced because you don't want them to have any idea what awaits them after the river. In your head, you quickly run through your "outs" and come up with the following possibilities:

• J of any suit will give you a straight (4 outs)



• Any remaining spade will give you a king high flush (9 outs - 13 spades minus the 4 showing).



• One of the remaining Ks will improve your hand, but will 2Ks hold up (3 outs)

If you count the remaining Ks, you have 16 "outs" in the remaining cards to improve your hand. Although not an exact science, using 4% for each "out" on the turn card will give you a good idea of your possibilities. In this case, you have approximately a 64% chance of improving your hand on the turn.

Let's say the turn card is Ad. Now the remaining Ks don't look as impressive if you suspect someone is holding a pocket Ace. Dropping the Ks from your "outs," you now have 13 outs remaining on the river to hit a straight or a flush. At the river, you only have one card remaining reducing your percentage to approximately 2% per "out." With 13 "outs" remaining, you are looking at approximately a 26% chance of making your hand on the river. With an Ace on the board, you need to compare the odds of a bet against the odds of making your hand. Otherwise, a missed card on the river could cost you more than you should have lost. If for example, there is 100,000 in chips in the pot and you are faced with a 10,000 bet, you are looking at only a 1/10 (10%) of the pot bet as compared to a 26% chance of making your hand.

If the river card was 4s the community cards will be as follows:

Qs6s9hAd4s

With no pair on the board, you know no one can beat you with a full house or four of a kind. The board also allows no chance of a straight flush. With Ks and 10s, your hand is very good, but can still be beaten by an Ace high flush. If you don't suspect one of you opponents is holding 2 spades Ace high, the pot will be yours after the final bet.