Slow Down On The Flop

Recently on the Red Chip Poker forums, a member posted a hand she played. I’ve changed a few of the details of the hand to make the example more illustrative, but the main concept at play is the same.

It’s a $1-$3 game with $300 stacks. A player limps, and our hero raises to $15 with A 10. The big blind calls, and the limper folds. There’s $34 in the pot with $285 behind.

The flop comes A Q 9, giving our hero top pair with the nut flush draw. This is a good hand by any measure. There’s a good chance that it’s the best hand now, and if it’s not, it has the nut flush draw to fall back on.

The big blind bets out $50. The pot is $34, so this is a significant overbet.
This is a peculiar play. You can play many hours at $1-$3 and never see someone bet out like this into the preflop raiser—not with such a large size, at least. A bet of $20 or so would be more typical. You see that play all the time, and typically on a board like this a $20 bet would represent an A-x hand such as A 7. It could also mean a flopped draw.

But the $50 bet is very uncommon, and in my experience it usually indicates considerable strength. The most common reason $1-$3 players overbet the flop into draw-heavy boards is that they have a strong hand, and they’re worried about getting outdrawn. I would expect this player usually to hold A-K or stronger.

Naturally, this isn’t an ironclad read. The player could be assuming that I would make this read and be betting this size with just a straight draw trying to get a fold. But, again, in my experience at $1-$3, that’s usually not what’s going on. Usually it’s a strong hand.

Despite the possible warning signs of strength, many players would shove. They figure with top pair and the nut flush draw, they have a through ticket to the river. Maybe they are ahead. And if they aren’t ahead, they have plenty of outs.

I don’t like shoving with this hand, however, especially when we have position in the pot. Why is shoving bad?

First, it’s hard to get called by worse hands. If the player were betting A-7 or A-4 or some other weak ace, the all-in shove would be a sign to most players to fold. If the player were betting a weak draw, many players would know not to call over $200 more with it.

The way you might get called by a worse hand is if the big blind holds a combination draw. A hand such as K J for a gutshot straight flush draw might bet out like this and call the raise. But that’s just one hand. The fact that the hero holds both the A and the 10 makes it very difficult for the other player to also hold a combination draw.

The bottom line is, if the shove gets called, our hero holding this big hand and draw will likely be an underdog.

It’s never a good thing to be an underdog when all the money goes in. When you hold a weaker draw, sometimes the best play is to shove as a semibluff and just hope for a fold. When you get called, obviously you will be an underdog.

But when you hold a strong hand like top pair and a flush draw, you don’t have to settle for turning the hand into a bluff. You have options. You can play the hand both as a draw and as a made hand. Usually, to play it that way, it means leaving money behind to play the turn and river.

I would have just called the flop bet. A turn card would come. About one-third of the time, that card would improve me to two pair or better. Most of the rest of the possible cards are “bricks” that are clearly unlikely to improve either hand. I would decide what to do next by evaluating my opponent’s action. A big bet would tend to confirm my read that A-10 needs to improve to win. A check or, especially, a small bet would make me consider that my original read on the flop bet was wrong and that my opponent holds a weak ace or a draw.

In general, when you hold top pair with a flush draw, playing out the turn and river will benefit you. It’s a deceptive hand, since you can play as if you hold top pair, yet show up with a flush if the flush card comes. Also, it’s the sort of hand that allows you to take maximum advantage of the errors your opponent might make, since you can profit from an opponent who wants to bluff too much, and you can also profit from an opponent who wants to call too much.

When the stacks are deep, and you hold the nut flush draw, it’s a particularly valuable hand on the turn and river. All these advantages are amplified when you also have position.

If you look at this hand on the flop and think, “Let’s get all the money in and fast,” you are wasting much of the value this hand has.

More generally, if you want to generate edges at no-limit hold’em, you have to learn to be as comfortable as possible with turn and river play. So many players are scared of seeing and reacting to turn and river cards. These players are prone to making large errors on these streets, and these are errors you can capitalize on.

But you can only capitalize if you allow hands to continue through the turn and river.
There are times for raising and shoving on the flop. But I like to shove flops in $1-$2 and $2-$5 games typically when I am fairly sure I will have a big edge if all the money goes in. I’ll shove, for instance, if I hold bottom set and I suspect I might have an opponent on the hook with top pair or an overpair.

I’m much less willing to shove the flop if I have a hand that’s likely to be a coin flip (or worse) after the money goes in. Usually there’s more value in taking these hands to the turn and trying to gather more information before you commit stacks. Top pair with the nut flush draw is an extreme example of this concept, since it’s often an underdog if all the money goes in on the flop, but it has tremendous playability on the later streets.

In the actual hand posted on Red Chip Poker, after our hero shoved the flop, she was called by 9-9 for bottom set.

Ed’s newest book, No-Limit Hold’em Made Simple will be available soon at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the training site redchippoker.com.