drawing thin

Drawing thin refers to a player who has only a small number of outs to form a winning hand. It is used particularly in situations where the player may not know of this and assumes they have a larger number of outs.

It is usually assumed that a player who is drawing thin has at least one out, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a player who has no true outs and requires runner runner to win. A player with zero chance to win is said to be drawing dead.

Andre is playing hold'em and is now facing Tamin heads-up. Andre holds J♠ 8♠, Tamin holds Q♠ 9♠ and the flop is A♠ 2♠ 9♦. Andre rightly deducts that Tamin does not hold an ace, but perhaps a nine. Quickly he counts that any jack or a spade would thus likely gain him the pot. Those seem like good odds but he doesn't know a spade would give Tamin flush as well. Rather than having a good chance, Andre is drawing thin, requiring one of the three remaining jacks.

Sign up for More

Questions?

drawing thin