Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
3.Ignoring negation of outs.
“Negation of outs” is simply a phrase I use to refer to circumstances suggesting that some or all of your outs may not be good if they hit. For instance, when you have overcards poker like the flop is and there’s a bet and a raise ahead of you, it is easy to see that you “outs” are negated, to one degree or another, by the various hands opponents may hold (or draws they may complete) which beat any one pair.
Of course it’s usually not that obvious. Consistently recognizing when your outs are significantly negated, and playing accordingly, is one of the marks of a skilled player. Likewise, failing to recognize the negation of outs is a mark of poor play. Sometimes however, even good players slip into a tendency to ignore, or fail to accurately assess the negation of outs. This can easily come about as a result of subtle tilt. A Player may know, under normal conditions, that some or all of his outs are likely to be no good even if they hit. If his play is emotionally affected he may rationalize playing on, talking himself into a read on his opponent’s poker hand which suggests that his outs are good. For example, say you are dealt and open for a raise with three people left to act behind you. Only the small blind, an average player, calls. Now the flop comes: Your opponent checks and calls your bet. The turn brings the
Your opponent checks again and you opt to bet. When you do, he raises. Normally, thinking completely objectively, you would know that you couldn’t assume you had seven outs (four for the gutshot draw and three aces). While your opponent may be semi-bluffing, or has a hand which does indeed give you seven outs, you would know, depending on the opponent, that thee is some chance he could have hands ranging from AQ, or AA (the latter having been slowpalyed preflop) to A4s, 55, 33, or 22. These hands reduce your outs to either four or three (the latter giving you only half the pot). (You can figure precisely the number of hands your opponent might have that preserve your outs versus those that negate them by counting combinations.
Sklansky outlines this procedure in Poker, Gaming & Life. In this example, however, it is clear without even bothering with this, that your outs are significantly negated). Thus, while seven outs is an bout a 6-to-1 shot, the 6.5-to-1 you are getting from this pot is not enough to call. You cannot win this pot the one time out of seven that the “”6-to-1” figure refers to. If your judgment is clouded by emotion or otherwise hindered, then it will be easy to convince yourself that you do have all seven of those outs. You may decide that your opponent is semi-bluffing, despite this being an “average”player whose likelihood of making this check-raise without a made hand is minuscule.
You may put him on a hand like somehow “sensing ” that that is ‘definitely” what he has, thereby ignoring the other possibilities which are, in fact, quite real. It is crucial to good play that you stay constantly aware of negation of outs. I believe that ignoring this concept is one of the most common manifestations of the subtle losses of judgment that poker players experience. Of course, you must not bend over backward in the other direction and constantly convince yourself that your opponents have hands that have you drawing dead. That would just be playing scared or “weak-tight.” What is needed is an objective awareness of when some or all of your outs may be negated. If you find over some period of time that many of your errors involve calls where you may have ignored the negation of outs, you may be able to bring your play back into a more profitable zone simply through a renewed awareness of this poker concept.
On Tilt: Part II – The Professional Attitude / Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part I
Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part II / A Poker Player in Therapy