Maybe if the action is 3-handed and you suspect one of the other players is drawing for the same flush (and think you flush is bigger, or else you would fold) you could subtract a couple outs if you think the non-flush guy is ahead. However if you can make reads like that your probably either cheating somehow or psychic.

If your going to take out a few of your outs as they are likely to have gone you have to take out the other cards that weren't your outs as well, this gets you right back at the same odds you started with anyway.

Say your playing at a 10 player table and you have 4 to a flush on the flop that means you have seen 5 cards (47 left to see) and have 9 outs to make your flush about a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the flush on each street.

9/47 =0.1914

If you take out a few of your outs, lets say 9 other players would have roughly 3 or 4 of your suit between them. They also have another 16 or 17 cards that aren't your suit. Once you work your odds out again 29 left to see 5 or 6 left to hit your flush and your right back at about a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the flush on each street.

5/29 = 0.1724
6/29 = 0.2068

Hope this helps.

Lamby100

Good reply to the question.

I noticed your signiture and while I don't usually (like have never) post River Rats sob stories I had to following this tourney early this morning. Checkout

Quads TWICE in SAME tourney!

Oddly enough I only wnet on mild tilt the first time and just shook my head the 2nd

Originally Posted by Lamby100

If your going to take out a few of your outs as they are likely to have gone you have to take out the other cards that weren't your outs as well, this gets you right back at the same odds you started with anyway.

Say your playing at a 10 player table and you have 4 to a flush on the flop that means you have seen 5 cards (47 left to see) and have 9 outs to make your flush about a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the flush on each street.

9/47 =0.1914

If you take out a few of your outs, lets say 9 other players would have roughly 3 or 4 of your suit between them. They also have another 16 or 17 cards that aren't your suit. Once you work your odds out again 29 left to see 5 or 6 left to hit your flush and your right back at about a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the flush on each street.

5/29 = 0.1724
6/29 = 0.2068

Hope this helps.

Man, me and a buddy I play live with argue about this topic all the time, but I could never think of a good way to explain why taking away cards that were probably dealt was wrong. This is exaclty the logic I need to pwn his ass next time he brings it up. Awsome.

I'm glad this thread isn't getting as ugly as the last time this question came up:

Making an educated guess?

Here's the reason you don't try and count cards you can't see:
At the shuffle of the deck the cards are put into a random order. Any card has a 1/52 chance of being the top card in the deck, and a 1/52 chance in being the middle card, etc. . .

So there are a set of cards we know as the "flop", "turn", and "river". These cards are positioned in the deck such that after dealing all the down cards they will end up on the board.

Once the flop comes up, we now know what 5 cards are (our 2 down cards and the 3 flop cards). We have no information on any other cards (typically, unless someone exposes cards while mucking, etc).

So if we're on a flush draw, we know there are 9 other cards of that suit that make our hand. So what we're trying to figure out is what the probability that one of those 9 flush cards was shuffled into position to be the turn card. This probability has everything to do with the randomization of cards we call "shuffling", and nothing to do with what has been dealt out (unless we knew what all the cards are).

We have information on 5 cards, so there are 47 cards left we have no information on. So the chance that one of the 9 flush cards will be the turn card is:

p(Turn is a flush card) = 9 flush cards / 47 total remaining cards
p(T Flush) = 19.1%

So it has everything to do with what the probability that the deck was shuffled in such a way as the next card to be dealt is a card that helps us.