Free · Exact card counting
An out is a card that turns a losing hand into a winning one. Count them, and you can put a real number on a draw instead of a feeling. The calculator above converts outs into the exact chance of hitting from the flop with two cards to come, or from the turn with one — and shows what the rule of 4 and 2 would have told you, so you can see where the shortcut is safe and where it is not.
Exact percentages from the flop and from the turn
The common draws with their out counts
Shows where the rule of 4 and 2 goes wrong
Exact figures using the cards a player can actually see: 47 unseen on the flop, 46 on the turn. The rule column shows the familiar shortcut for comparison.
| Draw | Outs | Flop to river | Turn to river | Rule of 4 says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gutshot straight | 4 | 16.5% | 8.7% | 16% |
| Two overcards | 6 | 24.1% | 13.0% | 24% |
| Open-ended straight | 8 | 31.5% | 17.4% | 32% |
| Flush draw | 9 | 35.0% | 19.6% | 36% |
| Flush + gutshot | 12 | 45.0% | 26.1% | 48% |
| Flush + open-ended | 15 | 54.1% | 32.6% | 60% |
Outs
The rule of 4 and 2 is a shortcut, not the answer. It drifts high as outs increase — at 15 outs it claims 60% when the real figure is 54.1%.
From your seat, 47 cards are unseen after the flop — the 52-card deck minus your two hole cards and the three on the board. Your opponents' cards count as unseen, because you cannot see them either. After the turn, 46 remain. Every out is one of those unseen cards, and the arithmetic follows from there.
The obvious mistake is doubling the one-card number. It overshoots, because if you hit on the turn the river no longer matters — you cannot hit twice. The correct method is to work out the chance of missing both times and subtract from one, which is what this calculator does. The gap grows with the size of the draw.
Six numbers cover almost every home-game decision. A flush draw is 35% from the flop and 20% from the turn. An open-ended straight is 31% and 17%. A gutshot is 16% and 9%. Learn those and you will rarely need to compute anything at the table — the rest of the table certainly is not.
Combination draws are routinely undercounted. A flush draw that is also open-ended is fifteen outs and better than a coin flip by the river, which is a completely different hand from the nine-out flush draw it resembles. Overcards to the board can add outs too, though only against opponents whose range you genuinely beat when you pair.
Outs that make you the second-best hand are not outs. Drawing to the low end of a straight, or to a flush with a small card in that suit, means some of your winners are the exact cards that pay someone else. A paired board removes outs too, because a full house beats the flush you are chasing. Count the cards that win, not the cards that improve.
Outs alone do not tell you whether to call — they tell you how often you hit. Put that next to the price the pot is offering and the decision falls out. A flush draw at 35% is a comfortable call against a half-pot bet and a clear fold against a large overbet, and it is the same draw in both cases.
The count you made on the flop is not the count you have on the turn. A card that pairs the board can kill outs outright, a third suit landing can mean your straight outs now lose to a flush, and an opponent's sizing on the turn often tells you which of your outs were live in the first place. Recount after every card rather than carrying the flop number to the river.
The percentage is only half the equation; the other half is the pot, and physical chips are where home games lose track of it. PokerChip.live keeps pots and side pots exact on every player's phone while the group deals a real deck, so the price you are pricing against is the real one.
FAQ
01
A card still in the deck that gives you the winning hand. Cards that improve your hand without winning the pot do not count as outs, and treating them as outs is the most common counting mistake.
02
Nine. Each suit has thirteen cards and you can see four of them — two in your hand, two on the board — leaving nine that complete the flush.
03
About 35% from the flop with two cards to come, and about 20% from the turn with one. Those are the exact figures; the rule of 4 and 2 gives 36% and 18%.
04
Eight — four cards at each end of the sequence. That is about 31.5% from the flop and 17.4% from the turn.
05
Four, since only one rank completes the straight. That works out to about 16.5% from the flop and 8.7% from the turn.
06
Because the rule of 4 double-counts the times you hit on both the turn and the river. Working it out properly gives 54.1%, and the difference matters most in exactly the spots where a big bet is deciding the hand.
07
Not as full outs. Drawing to the low end of a straight or to a small flush means some of the cards you are hoping for hand a better version of the same hand to someone else, and those are the cards you lose the most money to.
08
Not from your seat. You cannot see them, so they are part of the unseen cards along with the rest of the deck. What their range does change is which of your outs actually win.
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