Poker Strategy:
Texas Hold'em Poker Odds
Understand "Position" in Texas Hold'em
How To Bet in Poker
Learn how to Bluff - What is Bluffing?
Etiquette - How To Behave At The Table
What You Should Know About Bankroll

Low-limit texas hold’em is mostly a game of math. In the long run, players who understand the probabilities will take money from those players who willingly bet their money on long shots.

To start learning the probabilities in texas hold’em, it is necessary to understand the concept of "outs". The number of "outs" that you have is the number of cards in the deck that can complete your hand. For example, say you hold:

and the flop is:

If a 6 or a Jack comes on either the turn or the river, you will have made the "nut" (best possible) straight. You therefore have 8 outs (4 sixes plus 4 jacks) to make your hand. The probability (as can be seen in the table) that you will make your straight by the river is 31.45%.

Odds:

You are probably wondering, “How can I be expected to memorize all those numbers?”. Well—you don’t have to. If you look at the table, you can see that there are some easy “rough estimates” that you can make also. After the flop, the odds of making your hand with one card to come is approximately 2 times the # of outs. The odds of making your hand with two cards to come is approximately 4 times the # of outs. The most common situations where it’s is necessary to know your odds happen all the time, and they will be easy to remember:

Open-ended Straight Draw: 8 outs
Flush Draw: 9 outs
Flush draw and Open-ended Straight Draw: 15 outs
Flush draw with an Inside Straight Draw: 13 outs

A few other interesting numbers to know are:

Probability of being dealt a pocket pair: 5.88%

Probability of being dealt suited cards: 23.5%

Probability of hitting a three of a kind or better on the flop when you hold a pocket pair: 11.8%

Probability of making a pair on the flop with two unpaired hole cards: 32.4%

Probability of making a gutshot straight draw from by turn or river: 16.5%