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May 3 — Just because you raise with a combo draw doesn’t always mean you will get the right price to call an all in

One of the hands that I frequently drive as a strong semibluff when I am on a draw is middle or bottom pair and a flush draw. The reason why I like these as opposed to top pair and a flush draw is oftentimes you will have more outs with them against the preflop raiser, and if you do hit trips, you are way more likely to continue to get paid off on a later street. With the top card pairing and you holding trips it can kill the action or worse, you could still be beat. However, just because you raise with a pair and a flush draw—or any type of draw for that matter—does not mean that you always have to call off your stack for an all in.

In fact, it can be a real disaster if you get into a situation in a multi-way pot where you are up against a made hand and also a draw that dominates you. A few weeks ago, I saw the following hand go down at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 game. The players in the hand were all about $1,500 effective. The under the gun (UTG) player had raised to $40 preflop and a middle position player, a young, aggressive professional, called, as did the button, an older super nitty player. The flop came down 8 4 3, and the UTG player made a $100 continuation bet. The young player raised to $375, and, surprisingly, the button moved all in for just under $1,500. The UTG player then took two or three minutes, looked like he was deeply calculating something, and finally called. Then, shockingly to me, the younger player also quickly called, and the hands were revealed. The button (quite obviously) had a set of eights. The UTG player had A Q and the MP1 player had 7 6. The board ran out blank blank, and the button dragged in a huge pot. A minute later, the young player was telling his buddy next to him that once he raised with a combination draw there was no way that he could fold getting over 3-1. Do you see the flaw in this reasoning, however?

First of all, with 100 percent certainly the button had a set, and most likely top set due to how nitty he was. The UTG player made it extremely obvious that he also had a flush draw and was not the type of player to raise from up front with small pocket pairs. So the younger player, even though he had a straight and flush draw, was likely to be dominated by the UTG player, and his only outs would have been a straight. In fact, 7 6. has about 11 percent equity in the hand versus a set and a higher flush draw, nowhere near the 24 percent that he needs to call in pot odds.

I am not immune to these types of mistakes, and a few weeks ago I made a similar error, but in a different situation. In this hand, I was on the button with 6 3 with a very good image. I had the table covered and a player opened from UTG+1 to $35 with a $1,400 stack. The cutoff, who also had about $1,400, called, and I made a very loose call. The board came out A 3 2 giving me middle pair and a flush draw. The preflop raiser checked, and the cutoff bet $85. I knew the cutoff’s style pretty well and was almost certain that he had an ace. If you have read my Card Player articles before, you know that I like attacking field bettors after the preflop raiser checks, as they are likely to only have one pair and may not want to play a giant pot. For this reason, I decided to raise to $340. Much to my surprise, the early position player now check-raised to $950. The cutoff tanked for several minutes before folding.

When the action got back to me, I was a bit confused as to what the UTG+1 player was representing. I was almost certain that the cutoff had had an ace due to his flop sizing and tanking, so that only left one combination of A-A left. If he showed me A-A, there was no way that I could call, as I was only getting about 1.6 to 1 from the pot (treating his check raise to $950 as an all-in) and I was about a 3-1 underdog. Finally however, I convinced myself that it was unlikely that he had a set and I moved all in (same as a call). I was shocked when the UTG+1 player turned over 5 4 for a flopped straight with a flush draw, and lost a big pot.

If I had been doing my range analysis correctly, I really should have folded. I do not think any player is playing A-K as a check-raise three-bet on the flop nor do I think someone is check-raising a hand like K Q. These really were the only hands that I had the proper equity to call with given the pot odds, even though I had a combination draw.

May 7 — Straightening ragged boards are some of the best to semi-bluff vs the preflop raiser.

If you want to take your no-limit game to the next level, you have to start paying attention to board textures and the likelihood that they hit your opponent’s hand. It is also important to put your opponent on an accurate preflop calling range and figure out the number of combinations of hands that can beat you if you hold one pair as the preflop raiser.

All boards are certainly not equal. For example let’s take a look at Q-7-2. If a player has a reasonable flat calling range preflop, it is impossible for them to hold two pair. Also, if they are almost always going to three-bet A-A, K-K or Q-Q and they are unlikely to raise the flop with just a queen, then if they do raise, they are only representing a set of sevens or deuces for value.

Conversely, let us take a look at a board of 9-8-7. In this case, if the opponent plays suited connectors, he could have flopped 8-7 9-7, 9-8, J-10, or 6-5, many more hands that beat an overpair as compared to a disconnected flop. For this reason, you really can drive draws that may not even be that strong against a competent player’s continuation bet. Let’s say we have A-5 suited on the above board and we know that our opponent has K-K. We have seven outs with the bottom end of a gutshot with an overcard. Now this is not the best draw, especially multi-way, but if we can get it heads up against the preflop raiser, there are many many hands that we can have that beat one pair.

Especially on flush draw boards, there are also many cards that can come that will scare one pair on the turn. Along with the six or the ace making our hand, we could represent the front door flush draw as well as a jack, making it look like we had an open-ended straight draw with a ten. A five and a ten also put out one-liners to straights, which look awfully scary for an overpair. That’s over half of the deck that will make it very hard for our opponent to continue on.

So the next time you want to make a play at the preflop raiser when you feel like they may have an overpair but you think you can get them to fold, make sure that you have a lot of combinations of hands that beat one pair on the flop in your range and that you follow through with logical scare cards that come in on the turn. ♠

Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on Twitter @CrushLivePoker and @BartHanson. Check out his poker training site exclusively made for live cash game play at CrushLivePoker.com where he produces weekly podcasts and live training videos.