Poker
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What is an out?
Drawing dead
A player that is drawing dead refers to a hand that is behind and has zero chance of becoming a winner by the River, a hand that has no outs. For example
Player 1: Q♠9♠
Player 2: A♣A♥
Board: A♠A♦K♠K♦
Player 1 cannot improve his hand to a hand better than four-of-a-kind, which is what the Player 2 has. Player 1 is drawing dead as there are no cards that can come on the River to make him a winner. A more common occurrence happens when a player has overcards to the board on the Turn, while another player already has two pair. In that case the best the River card can do for the player with overcards is to improve his no-pair hand to one pair, which still will not beat two pair. For example:
Player 1: AKo
Player 2: 87o
Board: T-8-7-3 rainbow
Player 1 is drawing dead, there are no cards that can come on the River to give him a winning hand over Player 2. The only way Player 1 can win this hand is if Player 2 folds to a bluff bet or raise by Player 1.
Drawing thin
Drawing thin refers to the situation when there are very few cards that are outs. The number of
outs may only be 1 or 2. For example:
Player 1: Q♣J♣
Player 2: A♠A♥
Board: A♣A♦K♣K♦
In this situation, Player 1 can make a royal flush, which would be better than Player 2's four A’s. There is only one card that can give Player 1 a royal flush, that card is the T♣. So Player 1 is drawing to only 1 out, and that means he is drawing thin.
Great Draw
Sometimes you can have a hand that is a favorite to win but is not leading at the moment. For example:
Player 1: Q♥J♥
Player 2: 2♣2♦
Board: K♥T♠T♥3♣
Player 1 has 25 outs and only 19 non-outs even though Player 2 has a pair already while Player 1 does not. The pair of 2's that Player 2 holds is the better hand at the moment, but Player 1 is actually favored to win this match-up. Specifically, any Q or J gives Player 1 a better two pair (6 outs), any K or 3 will give Player 1 a better two pair with a higher kicker (6 outs), any heart will give Player 1 a flush (7 outs, the 2h is not an out since it gives your opponent a full house and we have already counted the 3h), and any A or 9 that is not a heart will give Player 1 a straight (6 outs). In practice, it will be difficult to know when you are in such a great situation like this. If you held Player 1's card, you cannot be sure your opponent has 2♣ 2♦, but you should know that unless he has a full house or a chance to hit a full house when you hit one of your draws, that you have a nice chance of winning this hand