Pocket Aces Versus A Flush Draw

You’re heads up on the flop in a no-limit hold’em game. You hold pocket aces and the board presents a flush draw. If your opponent has that draw, how can you manipulate the situation to maximize your return if he misses and minimize your loss if he hits?

First, let’s wind the betting back to before the flop, so we know how you got here and how much money’s in the pot. For the sake of conversation, we’ll set the blinds at $2-$5, give you two black aces in middle position and have you open an unraised pot for $20 – not a bad raise with pocket aces, since you want to thin the field, ideally to just one player, and a bet of four times the big blind will drive out most of the shoe clerks.

Your one caller is in the cutoff seat and is someone with average skills and a normal approach to the game. You can count on him to be smart enough to calculate pot odds, but not necessarily disciplined enough to follow through on what the odds dictate.

With a flop of K-6-2, two-suited in hearts and $47 in the pot (less rake), how much should you bet?

You pretty much have to bet, of course, since you can’t afford to give a free card on such a draw-heavy board. Apart from the draw, your foe’s likeliest playable hands are a good king or some kind of underpair. You likely have the best hand – but this is not merely a case of betting the best hand. What do you want your bet to accomplish? It could do one of three things.

It could win the pot right here.

It could extract extra value.

It could reveal new information.

To take a stab at doing any or all of these jobs, your bet here should be about two-thirds the size of the pot. If your foe missed completely, he’s going away, hand over. If he has something like a good king, he’ll stick around, but you’re only fading five outs (minus your redraws), so that’s fine. And if he calls without raising, he may be revealing his interest in the draw. He probably shouldn’t call here – “draws are death in no-limit” – but again, this is a foe you can count on to be aware of the right thing to do, but not necessarily to do it. For the sake of the implied odds (the greedy bastard thinks he’s going to capture your whole stack) he’ll probably take a card off.

Have you given him the right price to do so? Let’s find out.

A flush draw on the flop is about 2-to-1 against completing with two cards to come. If the pot is offering more than 2-to-1, it’s correct to call – but only if he gets to see both the turn and the river card for the price of his flop call. But he won’t get that, will he? Oh my, no.

With $47 in the pot, your bet of, say, $35 will put $82 in play. Your opponent has to call just $35 to win $82. That’s the right price for two cards, but not for one. If the turn is a blank, you’ll bet again; if you put him on a flush draw, not betting again would be a huge mistake, and we try not to make those. If he’ll fold the turn when he misses, then he called for the wrong price on the flop, which he really shouldn’t have done. And if he’ll call again for the wrong price on the turn, well, that’s just a party with candles and cake for you. Why? Because he’s doing bad math – unprofitable math – and even if his draw gets there on the river, you’ll come out miles ahead in the long run by giving willing foes the opportunity to do bad math.

One thing you never want to do is let your opponents do good math. In the name of getting some value out of your aces, you may be tempted to underbet the pot. Don’t do it! Don’t even think about pricing your opponent in with a hoover bet, a tiny bet designed to suck him in. Suppose instead of betting $35 on the flop, you bet only $10. “He’ll have to call that,” you chortle. “More money for me and my aces.” Yes, he’ll have to call. You’re giving him better than 5-to-1 return on a 4-to-1 shot for just the turn card alone. If you give him a cheap look at his flush draw and he gets there, well, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Of course, you could always check the flop, check the turn, check the river and hope your aces hold up, but that’s a timid way to play poker, and if that’s the way you feel, go take up checkers. Poker isn’t about winning or losing, it’s about making good decisions and forcing your foe to make bad ones. When it comes to betting the flop against a single foe when you think you have the best hand but he has the best draw, bet big enough to induce either a fold or a call that’s a math mistake. Then remember to bet the turn if it blanks.

Remember also that there are times when you’ll play this hand perfectly, your opponent will play it incorrectly, and you’ll get unlucky and lose. It happens. It’s not a disaster. However, do not for a second hold onto the toxic feeling of entitlement – I fricking shoulda won! – that often comes with pocket aces. If you do, you’ll go on tilt, play subsequent hands badly, and invite spewy disaster.
The most important takeaway from this column is the concept of doing good math versus doing bad math. If you don’t understand it completely, review the relevant sections in Annie Duke’s (and my) Decide to Play Great Poker. All will be made clear for you there. ♠

John Vorhaus is author of the Killer Poker series and co-author of Decide to Play Great Poker, plus many mystery novels including World Series of Murder, available exclusively on Kindle. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com.