While there are all types of different players in the world of online poker, they can all pretty much be sorted out into two different camps. There are those types of hopeful players who are simply hoping to get lucky and cash in on a big payoff, and end up taking bad odds to do so. Then there is the second group of smarter players, those who end up cashing in on the good odds offered by the first group. And this is the reason why millions of people in the United States and around the world play some form of lottery. They figure that the financial outlay is small, usually as low as $1 in the United States, so why not take a chance at becoming a millionaire? That reasoning is why the majority of lottery players are far from financial successes in their lives, and that mentality exists in the poker world as well.
To ensure that you are in that second group of poker players mentioned above, ThePokerGrind would like to add a very powerful weapon to your poker playing arsenal. This single bit of advice can be employed in a couple of seconds post flop and after fourth street in Texas Hold 'Em, and can instantly improve both your poker play and the amount of money in your wallet. Since there are a limited number of cards used in Texas Hold 'Em, and we know what five of them are after the flop, and six after the turn, we can make a snap calculation to understand our odds of hitting the hand we are trying to make.
Simply put, after the first three cards hit the flop in Texas Hold 'Em, look at your hand. Let's say the flop came 8 of Hearts, Jack of Clubs, 6 of Spades. And for the sake of argument, let's also assume that this hand you are playing the 9 and 10 of Diamonds. You can instantly see that you have four cards to a straight, only needing any 7 or Queen to fill your hand. From here, simplifying the math with this handy little trick is both speedy and profitable over the long run. Since you know that there are four 7s and four Queens still left in the deck somewhere, that gives you eight "outs". After the flop, multiply your number of outs by four for your percentage chance to hit your hand, and after the turn, multiply your number of outs by two.
In the above example you have eight outs after the flop, and that means you have roughly a 32% chance of receiving a 7 or a Queen on fourth street. If your card does not come on fourth street, you still have eight outs, so multiply that times two for your percentage chance to hit on the river. This would mean in the above example if someone card other than a 7 or a Queen arrives on the turn, you would multiply your eight outs by two, and immediately know you have approximately a 16% chance of hitting the card you need on the river.
The math behind this strategy is not that complex, but it would require a much more in-depth calculation if you wanted an exact percentage. But this is the same strategy employed by professional online and off-line poker players, as you can tell literally in a glance what odds you have of filling your hand. Use this "4 times your outs after the flop, 2 times your outs after the turn" odds computing strategy to help you decide which Hold 'Em hands you are going to play, and you're almost certain never to end up in the undesirable first group of poker players mentioned above again.
