The Rule of Four...The Rule of Two

Just thought I'd drop off a helpful hint to those who may have a hard time with odds...

At any given time during a hand, if you do not have a made hand, you should be able to whip up the number of outs you have to make your hand. This also will help know if you have the odds to call a bet that has been made out front of you.

There are 2 basic rules that are referred to as The Rule of Four and The Rule of Two that are very helpful.

Here's the math. If you take your # of outs after the flop and multiply by 4, that is very close to the percent chance that you have to hit your hand. If you take your # of outs after the turn and mulitply by 2, that is an approximate % chance that you have to hit your card on the river...

Sooooo, as an example, The Rule of Four goes a little something like this:

After the flop, we have 8 outs to hit an open ended straight draw in the 2 cards that we have left to see...8X4=32 so we have a 32% chance of hitting the card on the turn or the river.

And the rule of Two: If you missed the turn and still have 8 outs, 8X2=16, so we have a 16% chance of hitting our card on the river.

Hope this little short cut helps...

GL on and off the felt...