[RustyBrooks]

If you can beat him with a 7, 6, or a 2 and you've already seen a 2, 6 and an 8, then you actually have 10 outs (3 twos, 3 sixes, 4 sevens) 10/36 is basically 2/7 or 2.5:1 against. Basically not quite as often as 1/3.

In actuality you will win less than this. You are drawing to beat your opponent's 76 but he's drawing to a 6 as well. If you'll make a 7 about 1/3 of the time, he'll make a 6 less than 1/3 of the time (more like 20% of the time). So if you get a 7 you'll still be outdrawin 1 time in 5, so you don't count 7s as full outs. That doesn't change things much in this case because you still have 6 full outs for the 2s and 6s and then 3.2 "adjusted" outs for the 7s. I'd call this 9 outs. 9/33 isn't that different than 10/33 so in this case, no big whoop.

However, when your opponent's current hand might be an 85, and you have the same draw as before, now only your 2 is totally clean, because he might outdraw you and make a wheel, or a 6. This means you need to discount your 7s and 6s. The actual amount to discount takes some thought but you'll never be toooo far off to discount them by 1/4 in a case like this. If you have a much worse hand like a T and you're drawing to an 8, and your opponent current has like a 96 (9, drawing to a 6) then you need to discount more heavily, more like 1/3. This is like how in holdem if you're drawing to an open ended straight, and you think your opponent *might* be drawing to a flush, then you have to consider the outs of the flush suit as only partial outs, because when you get them you'll make your straight, but might lose to a flush.

We inflate the pot on 3rd sometimes as kind of insurance (there are other reasons to raise, and certainly reasons not to). We're trying to make sure we can see 5th without making a bad call on 4th, because we think that with more cards dealt our chances of outplaying our opponent are larger, and we're removing an obvious spot where we could get outplayed on 4th.

Personally I don't share your fatalism regarding poker, but even if you are destined to lose the next 4 times that you are drawing to a wheel, it doesn't matter, unless you think that you will lose more often, in the long run, than probability says you will. If you do, then I swear I'll never mention probability to you again [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] If you don't, then you'll have to accept that when you are in a situation where you will win 1/3 times, but don't know which times, then you just need to relax and understand that as long as you are acting in a way where you will profit if you win 1/3 times, then, in the long run, you will profit.

Put another way if you offered me a chance to win $2 for every time that a coin came up heads, and I'd pay $1 for each toss, I'd take it. I'd take it for $20/$10 also. Or $200/$100. Or $2000/$1000. At some point I might decline because losing would wipe me out - this is why we don't play in games above our bankroll even if we are likely to win at them.

Anyway, I *might* hit 10 tails in a row. Does this mean I made a bad bet? Of course not, and I'd make the same bet again. We play the same situations over and over and over and over again, the probability levels out and as long as we make the right decision, we make money.