I’d Rather Be Drawing

If you understand the concept of implied odds, then you know that in big-bet poker games like no-limit hold‘em, future risks and opportunities often matter more than your current equity in a small pot. This is why it can be correct to call a flop bet with a flush draw even though the immediate pot odds you’re offered don’t seem to warrant it. Sometimes you will hit your draw and win another bet or two. Other times you will miss but steal the pot with a well-executed bluff. If you’ve read the situation correctly, then you should turn enough of a profit from these options to more than make up for the times that you miss and lose the pot.

This versatility is the real strength of drawing hands. As long as your draw is live, you can never be in the kind of bad shape that, for example, a pair is in if it happens to run into the same pair with a better kicker. Consequently, it is far easier to justify putting money into the pot with a live draw than with a hand that could be way behind. Moreover, when you do make your draw, you can generally be confident that you have the best hand, a privilege rarely enjoyed by a player with even a strong pair.

In a heads-up pot, it will often be the case that one player is drawing while the other has a made hand with little chance of improving. The absolute strength of the made hand is likely to remain stable, occasionally improving to two pair, and even less frequently improving to trips. Most frequently, the hand will not improve at all and will, in fact, become relatively weaker as each new community card increases the number of possible better hands.

The draw, meanwhile, has highly dynamic equity. If the right cards fall, its equity relative to one-pair will skyrocket to 100 percent. If a blank turns, a draw’s equity is cut in half, and if it misses again on the river, it will generally have no showdown value at all.

This dynamic equity is far more conducive to good decision making. Thus, it is said that, “you know where you stand” when you hold a draw, and that just the opposite is true with a marginal made hand such as one pair. If the draw comes in, you can generally play strongly, confident that you have the best hand. If it doesn’t, you can semi-bluff with the knowledge that you have substantial equity when called, or if you miss on the river, you can assess the viability of a last-ditch bluff.

The made hand, however, is always playing pot control and guessing games. If his opponent shows strength, a player with a marginal made hand can only hope to be ahead of a bluff. If there are several streets yet to be played, he generally cannot expect his decisions to get any easier and may be forced to fold rather than face increasingly large bets with such uncertainty.

Although it’s rarely a big mistake to get all-in on the flop with a combination draw, since you’ll generally have something like 50-percent equity, it is not always the ideal play. If you expect to have little or no fold equity, then you may be better off seeing the next card instead. You know which cards will improve your hand and which will be scary for your opponent and can therefore make better decisions about whether and how to continue. Your opponent, however, won’t know whether he’s up against a better made hand or a draw, nor exactly which draw(s) he needs to worry about.

Essentially, you’re declining to put your money in on the flop as a coinflip in the hopes that, on balance, you’ll play better than your opponent. You’ll still win most of the pots you would have won if you’d gotten all in on the flop — though you may win less than you otherwise would have — but you’ll also give yourself a chance to lose less on, and perhaps even win some of, the pots on which you would otherwise have lost your stack.

For example, suppose that a tight-aggressive player raises in first position, and you call on the button with A Q. The flop comes 9 6 3, and your opponent makes a large continuation bet. You believe he has an overpair that, at least on the flop, he is prepared to take to the felt.

Raising and getting all-in is a defensible play. Against the range of all possible overpairs, you have 48-percent equity, and with the money already in the pot, getting it in would almost certainly be superior to folding.

Rather than investing your stack in a break-even proposition on the flop, though, you can look for better opportunities on future streets. Your opponent won’t make a mistake now, but he might later.

Suppose the turn is the 7. Will your opponent still be willing to stack off with an overpair now that he’s losing to 7-6, 9-7, 7-7, and 5-4 along with any hands you might have slow played on the flop? If so, you can call again and wait for the river. Not only could it improve you, but it could also be a scary card such as a 10 or an 8 that will enable you to bluff successfully and win on a board texture that would have cost you your stack if you’d gotten it in on the flop.

There is a misguided line of thinking which says that it is better to get your money in with a big draw on the flop lest your equity plummet on a blank turn.
Unfortunately, getting all-in doesn’t change what the turn card will be; it merely removes your ability to do anything about it. Knowing that your equity will sometimes plummet and sometimes skyrocket on the turn, you’d rather wait to find out which before deciding whether to put more money into the pot.

The player who truly benefits from getting all-in on the flop is the one with the overpair. Only two cards in the deck will improve his hand, so his decisions are only going to get tougher on future streets. He would be happy to take a coinflip now rather than play guessing games when scary cards start falling.

By getting all in on the flop, the player with the big draw is letting his opponent off easy. This is especially true if the player with the made hand is also out of position, another factor that will result in worse decisions down the line.
It all comes down to making good decisions and causing your opponent to make mistakes. Remember that everything here is premised on the assumption that your opponent will not fold a better hand on the flop. When you do expect substantial fold equity on the flop, fast playing a big draw is generally correct. It’s important to understand why, though, so that when these conditions don’t hold, you can make the right decision to help your opponent make some wrong ones. ♠

Andrew Brokos is a professional poker player, writer and coach. He blogs about poker strategy on ThinkingPoker.net and is co-host of the Thinking Poker Podcast. Andrew is also interested in education reform and founded an after-school debate program for urban youth.