With starting hands there are normally too many possibilities and too little information to tell exactly how many outs you may have to make a winning hand. There are some hands that make it relatively easy to figure out, such as when you have a small pocket pair against many other players. In that case, players will usually think they have 2 outs to hit on the Flop, because they will not be willing to continue with the hand unless they Flop a set (a three-of-a-kind). But even with a small pocket pair, there is more than one way to win. If the board comes with three straight cards and your pair is smack in the middle of it, such as when you hold 55 and the Flop is 6-4-3, you have a playable hand to see if a 7 or 2 comes later to make a straight. Also if the board contains a small pair with another low card, such as when you hold 55 and the Flop is 4-4-2, you

may have a playable hand unless you really think someone else has a bigger pair or a 4.

Once the Flop comes, you will have a better idea of how many outs you have, but you still will not know with too much certainty until you get more information about the other players’ hands. For example:

Your hand: ATo

Flop: T-7-4 rainbow

In this situation, you know that you are ahead unless someone has a set, two pair or a big pocket pair. Here is a table on the number of outs and non-outs that AT has against other hands with a board of T-7-4.

Your hand is AT with a board of T-7-4

Although normally the assumption is 47 unknown cards on the Flop, the tables above reflect 45 unknown cards. This is because we are comparing two hands, thus we actually know 7 cards (3 cards on the board and 2 separate cards in each of the two player’s hands), which means there are 45 unknown cards left in a 52 card deck.