Counting Outs in 7 Card Stud

The ability to accurately assess your chances of improving to the best hand – via counting possible ‘outs’ – is a key part of 7-card stud strategy. However the amount of cards seen and unseen is highly variable, especially when some players fold on later streets. This makes counting outs problematic in 7-card stud, leading many less experienced players to make errors. This article looks at the role of counting outs in good 7-card stud strategy, and suggests ways of improving this aspect of your game.

We start by taking the example of a flush draw in a multi-way pot, demonstrating both the roll of seen and unseen cards. Secondly we look at straight and full house draws and your decision to continue with these hands. Finally the role of outs in others hands are covered.

Scenarios

A good way of demonstrating the effect of outs in 7-card stud is to look at the scenario where you have a ‘live’ flush draw on 3rd street. You hold 3 hearts and have seen only one heart in an opponent’s hand. At a full (8-handed) table there are now 42 unseen cards – 8 ‘door cards’ showing on 3rdth street and your own additional 2 hole cards being the 10 that you know. Of the unseen cards 9 are hearts, the chances of improving to a 4 flush on 4 street are thus 9/42 – a little over 4.6/1.

You catch a heart on 4th street and bet out, all 7 opponents call you – none of whom caught any more hearts. Your chances of making a flush just improved in 2 ways. Firstly you now have a 4-flush. Secondly the ratio of hearts remaining in the deck to non-hearts has actually improved. There are now only 34 unseen cards and 8 of them are hearts – 8/32 being exactly 4/1. The reason for this improvement is that more non-hearts appeared on board than hearts, increasing the relative number of hearts left in the deck.

Profitably playing 3 cards to a straight in 7-card stud involves being aware of the cards that are 2 ranks away from your cards as well as next in rank. For example if you start with 10-J-Q then aces and eights are going to be required to complete your straight should you become open-ended later in the hand.

Open-ended straight draws have 8 outs from the unseen cards. Whether you continue with the hand will depend on the number of cards you have seen and the number of your required cards. At one extreme you may have seen 30 cards by 6th street and none of your required outs – in this case (adding your 2 hole cards) there are 20 unseen cards and 8 that you require, a ratio of just 2.5/1. At the other extreme you may be against a single opponent and have seen 3 of your outs folded. In this case you have seen 15 cards (plus your 2 hole cards) and have 5 outs from the 35 unseen cards – now your chances are just 1 in 7 – a big difference.
Outs for full house hands depend on whether you have trips or 2 pairs. With 2 pairs you have 4 outs to make a full house, assuming that none of your cards have been seen. With trips this goes up with each street dealt. On 4th street you have 4 outs (including one for quads), 5th street 7 outs and on 6th street you have a full 10 outs. Playing a full house draw (for example against an ‘obvious’ flush) is a matter of dividing your 10 outs by the number of unseen cards on 6th and comparing this to the pot-odds being offered. This scenario also emphasizes the need to remember all unseen cards – the seemingly meaningless folds on 3rd might have been outs for your full house by the end of the hand.

Finally we should mention being aware of outs for opponents when calculating the best play. If an opponent is showing a 3 flush on board and betting heavily then the number of unseen cards of their suit will have a big influence on whether you continue drawing to a straight (for example). If you have seen 4 other cards of their suit then you may have a more profitable situation than having seen none.

Conclusion

To summarize, counting outs – and using this information to decide on the most profitable play – in 7-card stud involves being aware of the number of unseen cards at any one time. Drawing successfully is dependant on accurately assessing not only the number of outs available for your hand, but the chances of opponents drawing to better hands at the same time.