Re: Newbie Question
Hi, and welcome!
Talk about the blind leading the blind. A total noob here myself so maybe you should discount everything I am about to say-- LOL.
But the one part of your question seemed so puzzling to me because it seems to me to be so starightforward a thing that I decided I would risk looking like a total poker retardo and post anyway. So maybe someone who really knows what they are talking about can come along and clean up after me and tell me why I am so dumb that I thought it was easy and what I am missing here.
It's the thing about COUNTING OUTS that I am referring to.
The example you gave, you have an open-ended straight draw. Any 3 or any 8 would give you a straight. So you have eight outs.
What confused me was when you said that the basic ones you could figure out and then gave the example of that open-ended straight draw as being one that troubled you. Because, you see, to me, that example is exactly what I would use as an example of one of "the basic ones!"
It just comes up so often that you see it's an open-ended and you know it's eight outs. Okay, so let me have it-- what am I missing? LOL.
If you're on a flush draw you have nine outs. Two of the 13 of the suit are in your hand and two are on the board so there's nine left that can make your flush for you.
These were the first two "outs" I learned.
Now it gets a bit more complicated when you're calculating outs and it's not a straightforward sort of board in that even if you make your hand, you're not sure you will have the best hand. Like if you're figuring on your outs for a straight but there's a flush out there. In that case, you have to keep in mind that one of your outs for each number (both the high and low card that would complete the straight) might be dead because they'd give the flush draw his hand and so instead of calculating odds then using the 8-outs number, you would want to use the 6-outs instead.
Does this make sense?
It did to me, that's how I understood it to be and I need to find out if I need to adjust my thinking!
My "advice" in his area is to go slowly and to realize that just like when learning to drive a car, you get in and at first there's so many things to frigging THINK about, putting in the key, adjusting the seat and mirror, etc. etc. After awhile it's all mindless and automatic.
You don't need to try to memorize a whole chart. Just start with two or three different situations, basic things like flush draws and straight draws, that you know will be coming up in you poker life repeatedly. Memorize those. Pay attention to how things change then when the board is paired. When you yourself have both a flush draw AND a straight draw. Incorporate THOSE elements then into your "memorized" brain space.
Little by little, as you build upon the information you already have and know, you can start to assimilate other pieces then, too. Meanwhile, that will give you a bit of confidence and you can also practice counting outs on the fly with different hands.
Eventually, you'll just "know" all these things at a glance simply from the repetition of situations in which they have come up.
I am interested in hearing how others approach this because this is so very fundamental that if I am completely off base here, I will eat a deck of cards for punishment!
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