In Small Stakes Holdem Ed Miller introduced the concept of discounting outs for weak draws. For overcards, each out a half an out, for example, AK on a flop of J 7 2 he could count that as 3 outs for your over cards. The reason is that you may hit your overcard, and still lose to someone playing KJ or A7, etc.

In a recent post, Marm brought up this same idea with flush draws and weak straight draws.

Does anyone use this methodology, or have a good rule to use for different situations?

Lets give an example, you have in BB.

Flop is

You have nine outs to a flush. You are vulnerable to an over flush, and if the turn comes with a heart, the river comes with a heart, you are EXTREMELY vulnerable.

How do you account for this?

Hey it worked.

Waster's post is now moved to a new thread in strategy.

Here's my maths for that.

9 outs = 2% per out per card = 36% (I know this is a bit out)

Given the possibility of overflush and bald Ace runner runner I'd guesstimate it down to 30%.

Not accurate, but good enough to stop me pretending I have odds to make a marginal call. And of course there would be a ton of other factors that came into play as well.

9 outs, if you hit one of the on the turn, there is about a 20% (really more like 18%) chance of a another on the river.

should you discount your 9 outs by 20% on the flop? Call it 7 outs?

In that circumstance with the draw to such a low flop meaning any heart would be good, I'd say that would be a reasonable way to do it.

Originally Posted by Irexes

Hey it worked.

Waster's post is now moved to a new thread in strategy.

Ya but my reply to Beav's is now on Waster's thread!

I assume that you are talking about Limit Hold 'Em?

If you are playing NL hold 'em then hitting your low flush when no-one else hits the high flush may win you what is currently in the pot, and hitting the low flush when someone else hits the high flush may cost you most of your stack, so really I would give no outs.

I think in NL it is very hard to play with discounted outs unless you know exactly what cards they are. Eg if a you a drawing to a straight on a 2 suited board.

I don't give discounted outs much consideration in your example but more for high cards on a textured board. Say you had :good: and the flop comes up . Now if the an Ace comes on the Turn, there are two pair for you and a very possible str8 for someone else. So while on the flop the 3 Aces outs are only worth about half since they can inprove your hand but make someone else a better hand.

In your example, you could discount overcard hearts since those hearts might make someopne a better flush than your's but only by maybe a 1/3 (or less)since they still need two in the pocket or 4-flush by the river. So in your example, you can account for 4 hearts leaving 9 outs including the A,K,Q,J, T, 9, 7 & 6 - discounted to about 9 - (8/3) = 6.34. In real time and at the table, I don't do the math - just take into account my outs are not as strong and play accordingly. That is I might just check it down on the River unless I sense weakness (on the Turn, I would still bet to make a single pocket heart pay for the suckout flush).

I shall refrain from trying to fix this lest I make it worse

It's basic probability.

You assign a % chance that a player may have a hand that uses some of your outs, and will beat you if those outs hit. If these outs hit, you aren't scared of them, jsut aware. You still need to play for value, and if that % was pretty low, you can still be aggressive. In order to make correct FTOP plays, you should play like you can see their cards. But since we can't we have to assign their hands ranges and the probabilities of each range.

Ex We have a hand, whatever hand, that has 9 outs (sounds like a fllush draw). We assume that there is a 33% Chance that 3 of these outs will leave us dominated. To make our draws correct, we have to subtract 1 out from our math (33% x 3 outs = 1 out no good), so we must have 4.8-1 odds on the river to draw to this hand for 8 outs. Even if said out does hit, we still have to play aggressive, or what ever play is correct, until we are informed by the other players actions that we are beat.