Card removal and card combinations

Learn when you can remove cards from a game of Hold'em and how you can work out the remaining pair and non-pair card combinations

As any poker player knows, every action at the table forces you to re-evaluate your estimation of your opponent's likely holdings. Experience and intuition play a huge part in this and it gets easier the more you play the game. However, there are certain rules that can be followed to allow a more objective approach when trying to calculate your hand's chances of success in the winning pot.

First of all, we need to look at the grounds for removing a card from the available cards on the table:

- It is in your hand

- It appears on the board

- It is in an opponent's hand.

This last point is only relevant when playing Seven Card Stud, a game where you see some of the opponents cards. The only other time this would be relevant is if the card is accidentally displayed by either a player or the dealer.

As cards are removed, the combinations for pairs and non-pairs obviously change and a successful player will be able to keep track of these changes and make new calculations accordingly.

The combination for each pair starts at six and will stay this way if no cards are removed. If one card is removed, the combination of pairs is changed dramatically: down to three. If two cards are removed the combination for each pair is one and three or four removed cards means that there are no more pair combinations available.

Non-pair card removal is not quite as straightforward, as calculations will depend on which card is removed. Take for example the ace-king pairing. There are 16 combinations of this kind if no card is removed. If a king is removed there will be 12 combinations remaining. If the next card is also a king, the combination drops to eight. However, if the second card to be removed is an ace, the combination left is nine. When three cards are gone, there can be either six or four combinations left at the table. With four cards gone, there can be four, three or zero combinations available. Five cards removed means there will be two or zero combinations and six cards will leave only one or zero combinations.

These calculations should enable you to approximate the card combinations left but of course, they will never be 100% accurate! You'll still need to use your intuition and sum up the information before make the right decision on which play to make.