The streets
Reading the flop
The flop is the first three community cards, dealt face up together after the first betting round. Reading it takes three looks, in this order: what hand you have now, what the board allows (whether it's dry or wet), and what could still come: a flush draw or a straight draw, and how many outs complete it.
Below are the three looks with real cards, the three draws worth recognizing at a glance (the flush draw, the open-ended straight draw and the gutshot), and how to count the cards that help you.
First, what you have
Your hand is made from the five cards you can see: your two hole cards and the three on the board. The same two cards make very different hands depending on the flop. Here you hold the ace of hearts and the queen of spades, and only the flop changes.
-
A pair of queens
You
The flop
Your queen pairs the one on the board, with your ace as the kicker.
-
A pair on the board
You
The flop
Both eights are community cards: everyone still in the hand has that pair. What's yours is the ace and the queen.
-
Two pair
You
The flop
Both your cards pair the board: aces and queens.
-
High card
You
The flop
Nothing pairs your cards. When nobody connects, the highest card plays: your ace.
Second, what the board allows
Before you think about your own hand, look at the flop the way your opponent sees it: three cards that belong to everyone. What matters is which hands it lets someone make, or draw to, with the right two cards.
-
Wet: flush
Monotone
It allows a flush: anyone holding two hearts already has five of one suit.
-
Allows trips
Paired board
It allows three of a kind: anyone holding another seven already has trips.
-
Wet: straight
Connected
It allows a straight: anyone holding ten-jack, or six-five, already has five in a row.
-
Dry
Dry
Rainbow (three different suits) with ranks far apart: nobody can make a flush or a straight with it, or draw to one.
Third, what could still come
A draw is four cards that need a fifth to become a flush or a straight. It wins nothing yet: if the card doesn't come, it's nothing. What you need to know about each draw is how many cards complete it, its outs, because everything else depends on that number.
-
Flush draw
9outs
You
The flop
The cards that complete it
Four hearts between your hole cards and the flop. Of the thirteen hearts in the deck you can see four, so nine more complete the flush: nine outs.
-
Open-ended straight draw
8outs
You
The flop
The cards that complete it
Nine, eight, seven and six: four ranks in a row, completed at either end by a ten or a five. Four tens and four fives make eight outs.
-
Gutshot (inside straight draw)
4outs
You
The flop
The cards that complete it
Jack, nine, eight and seven: the ten is missing, and only the ten, in the gap in the middle. A single rank completes it: four outs.
-
Both at once (combo draw)
15outs
You
The flop
The cards that complete it
Four diamonds and four in a row: nine outs to the flush and eight to the straight. The jack and six of diamonds complete both and are counted once: fifteen.
How to count your outs
The cards that can complete your draw are your outs (the course calls them live cards). You count them among the cards you can't see: on the flop you see five, your two and the three on the board, which leaves 47. Your opponent's cards are among those 47, because you can't see them either.
- Count what's missing, not what you see: thirteen hearts minus the four in view is nine.
- There are four cards of every rank: an open-ended draw isn't waiting for one ten and one five but for four tens and four fives.
- A card that completes two draws counts only once.
How often it comes in
- The next card
- 19%A little under one in five.
- The turn and the river
- 35%Roughly one in three.
With nine outs and 47 unseen cards, the next card completes your flush a little less than one time in five: 19%. If you see both remaining cards, the turn and the river, it comes in about one time in three. Once you're on the turn, 46 cards are unseen and the river completes it 20% of the time: the same count with one card fewer in the deck. Whether it's worth calling to see that card is a different count: the price.
And who acts first
After the flop the order changes: the first player still in the hand to the left of the button acts first, and the button acts last. Acting last is called having position, and it means reading the flop while also knowing what everyone else did.
Path 5 · 6 lessons · 39 min
Reading the flop
In the course
Reading the flop, played
Reading the flop is path 5 of the course: six lessons where you tap the cards that make your hand, the suit that repeats and the card left out of the draw, without putting in a chip. Before that, the course teaches the cards, the hands and what happens before the flop.
-
6 min
Your hand on the flop
You will name the hand you have by joining your two cards with the three on the board.
-
6 min
What this flop is like
You will say what a flop allows by looking at its suits and values.
-
7 min
What isn't there yet
You'll recognize a flush draw and a straight draw, and see that they don't all complete alike.
-
7 min
How many cards help you
You will count the cards that complete your draw, without mistaking them for winning.
-
6 min
Who acts first
You will recall who decides first after the flop and see what information acting last gives you.
-
7 min
The whole flop
You will read hand, board and draw on a new flop, without a single chip.
Frequently asked questions
What is the flop in poker?
The flop is the first three community cards, dealt face up together after the first betting round. Every player can use them. After the flop come the turn, the fourth card, and the river, the fifth.
What is a flush draw?
A flush draw is four cards of the same suit between your hole cards and the board, one short of a flush. Nine cards of that suit are still unseen, so a flush draw has nine outs.
What is a gutshot in poker?
A gutshot, or inside straight draw, is a straight draw missing a card in the middle, such as jack, nine, eight and seven, which needs a ten. Only one rank completes it, so it has four outs, half as many as an open-ended straight draw.
What is a dry flop and a wet flop?
A dry flop has mixed suits and ranks far apart, so nobody can make a flush or a straight with it, or draw to one. A wet flop can: it has two or three cards of one suit, or connected ranks.
What are the odds of hitting a flush draw?
With nine outs on the flop, the next card completes it 19% of the time, a little under one in five. Seeing both the turn and the river, 35%, roughly one in three. From the turn, with 46 cards unseen, the river completes it 20% of the time.
You read a flop one card at a time
Spotting a flush draw means seeing the suit that repeats, and that takes reading each card without stopping to think. The course starts there and gets to the flop in path 5, "Reading the flop".
First lesson · 6 min The cards Every card has two facts: rank and suit. You'll learn to read both, and which one says which card is worth more. Play nowNo sign-up · No money · In your browser
