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Discounting Outs

Discounting your outs means to devalue or completely throw away an out that while improving your hand, may at the same time improve your opponents hand to an even better hand.  Whether to devalue an out or disregard it entirely is subjective, and dependant upon the situation and what types of players you’re up against.  It takes a lot of experience before you can achieve a clear understanding of exactly what to do in each situation.  Some situations are fairly straightforward.  For instance you hold JT and the board is 9 8 4.  This is an extremely dangerous board as someone could already have a flush.  You hold a straight draw.  Either a queen or a 7 will give you a straight.  Normally you would have 8 outs.  With 3 hearts on the board, 2 of your outs should be discounted.  If either a Q or 7 falls on the board, although you will have made your straight, depending on how many opponents are left in the hand someone would most  likely hold a flush.  Therefore you’ll either discount or disregard 2 of your outs.  If I was up against one or two loose maniacs, I might simply discount the outs.  If against several opponents, I would disregard the two outs entirely and likely fold the hand.  Remember that much of the time you'll only want to continue in a hand after a three suited flop if you hold one of the two highest remaining cards in that suit.

Lets say you hold K Q and the board is 9 3 2.  If you’re up against a single opponent, you have to decide based on how your opponent has played in the past how likely you are to win if either a K or Q falls.  Again, if your opponent is a calling station and plays to the river no matter the cards then you wouldn’t discount your 6 outs as much as you would against a decent player with solid starting hand requirements who sees less than 35% of the flops.  Your opponent could be on a straight or flush draw, or could already have a set or two pair.  If you feel that if an K or Q falls you’ll win against your opponent  50% of the time, then discount your outs by 50%.  So instead of 6 outs, you’d have 3 outs and figure your draw odds accordingly.  In most cases I value overcards at .5 outs.  So K Q with rags on the flop would be valued at 3 outs total.  AK on a flop of rainbow rags I'll value at 1 full out each for a total of 6 outs.  If the board is at all coordinated (flush or straight draws, paired, etc..) then I'll give them 3 outs total.

When you’re first learning to find your outs and apply your draw odds to the pot odds it can be confusing to add discounted outs into the equation, especially online when the timer is ticking away.  Don’t feel too bad  if at first you miss some obvious situations where you should have discounted an out or two but didn’t catch them.  When playing online it’s important to download and go over your hand histories from time to time to see if there are situations where you should have played a hand differently.  Outs you should have discounted are easy to miss, especially for beginning poker players.  Poker tracker or Poker Office can help greatly in finding leaks in your game.  Check our poker software reviews page for more information on both programs.

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