Overcard on the Flop

In hold'em, when an overcard to your pocket pair comes on the flop, you often have a tough decision to make. (Two overcards make a hand easy to play; you muck it if someone bets.) The overcard means you can easily be beat by the top card on the board pairing an opponent, assuming you were not lucky enough to overcome the better than 7-to-1 odds against you of flopping a set. If you do not have the best hand, the chance of improving is dismal: two out of 47 on the next card, or 22.5-to-1 against you. What should you do?

The first consideration is whether you need to bet in order to protect your hand. Here, the size of your pair is very important. Let's take a flop of A-7-2 rainbow. If you have an intermediate pair like two tens, there are lots of cards that could beat you, because any king, queen, or jack is another overcard. As the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song says, "If the right one don't get you then the left one will." If there is a reasonable chance that your hand is good on the flop, you need to bet in order to protect your fragile holding. On the other hand, if you have two kings and your hand is good, you can afford to allow a free card. You may be beat on the flop, but it is not that likely someone with a weaker hand than yours will pick off a winner on the turn. This does not mean you are supposed to check two kings when an ace comes on the flop, but it does mean that a check is one of your viable options.

Your job in the decision whether to gamble a bet is to gauge whether the overcard on the board helped someone. Let's discuss some of the important factors that will affect your decision whether to bet. No. 1 is how many opponents you have. Against only one other player, you are the clear favorite that the ace did not help him. Against two opponents, things are more dicey, although my inclination is to bet and see what happens. Three opponents is borderline, and any number larger than that means it is probably wrong to bet.

Note that the number of opponents guides you only as to whether to bet the flop. A check does not mean you will always lose. If everyone checks the flop, you may wish to bet the turn. I remember a hand I played in a $15-$30 game at Binion's Horseshoe in 1996. I had two kings in the small blind. Five players limped in, and I of course raised. The big blind called, as did all of the limpers. The flop came A-2-rag (as the colorful Everett Goolsby would have described it). I checked, and everyone else checked, as well. Another rag came on the turn. I tested the waters with my big toe for $30, and the whole field folded. So help me God, that's the amazing truth.

Another factor in gauging whether the enemy helped is the rank of the overcard. An ace inspires the same sort of uneasiness as a skull-and-crossbones flag on the horizon. Trouble is in the air. I seldom bet into more than a couple of people when an ace comes. The lower in rank the card, the less dangerous it is. For example, holding pocket nines with a 10 as the top card on the flop, I would almost surely bet into three opponents.

Of course, the obvious way of telling the strength of the opposing hand is whether that person bets. If the opponent was the preflop raiser and bets, you are hard-pressed to stay. The more people who were bet into, the more likely that player has you beat. If you were the preflop raiser, the enemy will often check to you. A bet into you is often the sign the player is on a draw, since so many players with made hands like to check to the raiser to see if that person will bet. Even so, running down a bettor is risky business. If you are beat, the odds are very much against your helping, as was discussed above. Even if you are "right," the opponent may well have something like a flush draw and an overcard, making him only a small underdog. If he is drawing with anything more robust than that, like a pair and a flush draw, a flush draw with two overcards, or a flush draw and a straight draw, he is the favorite, albeit a small one. So, even if you gauge the situation correctly and catch your opponent drawing, you can easily lose.

One of your big problems when that overcard comes is that your opponents normally know the math also, meaning they are aware that an underpair composed of a pocket pair has only two outs against top pair, and you as a good player have a great distaste for throwing your money away. An aggressive opponent might try to run you out when holding little or nothing. While there is no surefire defense to counter this sort of aggression, one countermeasure you can take is to sometimes check after hitting when there is a big card on the board. You can slow-play two aces or an A-K that has paired. You have to do this once in a while so that your opponents can't run all over you. Note that checking when you cannot get overcoated by a higher card is the least risky situation for checking one pair.

Suppose you were the preflop raiser in a multihanded pot and someone bets into you, and for some reason you are suspicious that your hand is good. For example, you have pocket jacks with a flop of Q-10-3 rainbow in a fourhanded pot. The first player bets and you are next. Naturally, folding is allowed, but suppose you decide to make a stand. What should you do? To me, when someone bets the flop and I have a made hand and two players yet to hear from, I am better off investing another small bet if I decide to play. This is pretty close to a raise-or-fold situation. Am I unhappy raising when I cannot beat even top pair? Of course – but not as unhappy as I would be if I had the best hand on the flop, let someone behind me in cheaply, and lost the pot out of cowardice. There are lots of times in poker when you have to grit your teeth and play a hand strongly.

Getting a pocket pair overcoated on the flop is an annoying part of hold'em. In life, we seldom get a perfect trip, so why should poker be any different? You have to learn how to handle the bumps.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's new book, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, co-authored with Jim Brier, is available now (332 pages, $25 plus $5 shipping and handling). This work and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered through Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected] or call (989) 792-0884. His website is www.diamondcs.net/~thecoach, where you can download Robert's Rules of Poker for free.