Poker outs chart
How often at least one of your outs arrives — on the turn, on the river, and across both. Calculated from the unseen cards, not rounded from a shortcut.
What an out is
An out is a card still in the deck that gives you the better hand. Count them, and the table tells you how often one of them arrives. Nine cards of your suit are left when you hold a flush draw; eight cards complete an open-ended straight draw; four complete a gutshot.
The percentages below are worked out from the cards you can actually see. After the flop, 47 cards are unseen — the 52 in the deck minus your two and the three on the board. After the turn, 46 are unseen. Your opponents' cards are counted as unseen too, because you cannot see them.
The chart
| Outs | A hand with that many | Turn card | River card | Turn or river | Rule of 4 / 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One specific card left in the deck | 2.1% | 2.2% | 4.3% | 4% / 2% |
| 2 | A pocket pair improving to three of a kind | 4.3% | 4.3% | 8.4% | 8% / 4% |
| 3 | One overcard to pair up | 6.4% | 6.5% | 12.5% | 12% / 6% |
| 4 | An inside straight draw (a gutshot) | 8.5% | 8.7% | 16.5% | 16% / 8% |
| 5 | A pair improving to two pair or three of a kind | 10.6% | 10.9% | 20.4% | 20% / 10% |
| 6 | Two overcards to pair up | 12.8% | 13.0% | 24.1% | 24% / 12% |
| 7 | Three of a kind improving to a full house or better | 14.9% | 15.2% | 27.8% | 28% / 14% |
| 8 | An open-ended straight draw | 17.0% | 17.4% | 31.5% | 32% / 16% |
| 9 | A flush draw | 19.1% | 19.6% | 35.0% | 36% / 18% |
| 10 | A gutshot plus two overcards | 21.3% | 21.7% | 38.4% | 40% / 20% |
| 11 | A flush draw plus a gutshot that shares two cards | 23.4% | 23.9% | 41.7% | 44% / 22% |
| 12 | A flush draw plus a gutshot | 25.5% | 26.1% | 45.0% | 48% / 24% |
| 13 | A flush draw plus a pair | 27.7% | 28.3% | 48.1% | 52% / 26% |
| 14 | A flush draw plus two overcards | 29.8% | 30.4% | 51.2% | 56% / 28% |
| 15 | A flush draw plus an open-ended straight draw | 31.9% | 32.6% | 54.1% | 60% / 30% |
| 16 | A flush draw, a gutshot and two overcards | 34.0% | 34.8% | 57.0% | 64% / 32% |
| 17 | A flush draw, an open-ended straight draw and one overcard | 36.2% | 37.0% | 59.8% | 68% / 34% |
The rule of 4 and 2, and where it breaks
The shortcut most players use is to multiply outs by 4 on the flop (two cards to come) and by 2 on the turn (one card to come). The last column shows it next to the real number. Multiplying by 2 is close all the way down the table. Multiplying by 4 starts fine and drifts: at 17 outs it says 68% when the true figure is 59.8%, an error of 8.2 points.
The reason is simple. Two chances at a card are not twice one chance, because the two chances overlap — some of the time you would have hit on both streets. The more outs you have, the more often that happens, so the shortcut overshoots by more.
What this chart assumes
Every number here assumes all of your outs are still in the deck and all of them are clean: no opponent is holding one of them, and none of them gives somebody else a better hand than the one it gives you.
Neither assumption is always true. The card that completes your straight can put a third heart on the board and hand somebody a flush. The card that pairs your ace can be the same card an opponent needed. Both cases turn a listed out into no out at all, and this chart cannot see either of them — it only knows how many cards you named. The calculator can, because you give it the other players' cards and it checks every unseen card one at a time.