Flop Evaluation: Part 1

I am starting a new series of articles on evaluating the flop. This series will focus primarily on hold’em, but I may throw in a column or two on pot-limit Omaha and Omaha eight-or-better. Anyone who has kept up with current trends in hold’em knows that you focus on ranges. Then you decide if the flop hits your range or your opponents range, and act accordingly.

Here we will approach decisions from the opposite angle. What are the attributes of various flops, and how should you react to them. In this column, I will introduce and describe a variety of flop features. In future columns, we will delve into how these features impact your tactics and strategies.

Pairs: About 83 percent of the time the flop will not contain a pair. 17 percent of the time it will contain a pair or on rare occasions trips (less than 1/4 of one percent.)
Suits: A flop may consist of three suits (rainbow), two suits (thus there is a flush draw possible) or one suit (a flush is already possible.) The flop will contain two of a suit slightly more than half the time, about 55 percent. Next most common are the rainbow flops (three suits), which occur about 40 percent of the time. The remaining five percent of the time the flop comes out with three cards of the same suit.

Connection: Connection refers to straight potential. It is more difficult to describe since there are several flavors. There are flops that can already make a straight. These consist of three connected cards – 10-9-8, 10-9-7, or 10-9-6. There are flops that may make a straight on the next card (straight draws) – 10-9-2, 10-8-2, or 10-7-2. There are flops that don’t appear to be connected, but still have turn cards that produce straights. For example, A-10-6 seems disconnected, yet any K, Q, J, 9, 8, or 7 makes a straight possible on the turn. And lastly, there are four flops that don’t allow a straight to be made on the turn – K-8-3, K-8-2, K-7-2, and Q-7-2.

Rank: Ranks form a continuum from ace down to deuce. For simplicity, think of three ranks: high (ace, king, queen or jack,) middle (ten, nine, eight, seven, or six) and low (five, four, three, or two). This leads to ten categories of flops. The complete catalog is:

3 high,
2 high +1 middle,
2 high + 1 low,
3 middle,
2 middle + 1 high,
2 middle + 1 low,
3 low,
2 low + 1 hi,
2 low + 1 middle,
1 high, 1 middle and 1 low

This list may seem boring and obvious, but it will assume a lot of importance when we start to discuss how different flops interact with various preflop ranges.

We have briefly looked at the separate attributes of a flop. To summarize: they are pairs, suits, connections, and rank. It is crucial to add that none of these attributes occur in a vacuum. They are always in combinations. For example, a pair may come with a flush draw, like K K 4, or it may come with a straight draw like 10 10 9 or both like 8 8 7. Similarly there are many combination flops that contain both a two-card straight and a two-card flush. And, of course, in all cases the cards on the flop can be classified by rank. The more combinations there are, the more variability there is. Variability is sometimes described as high (wet boards) or low (dry boards.) Let’s add it in as the final attribute of a flop.

Variability: All the individual attributes combine to produce variability. There is a huge difference in the variability of flops. Dry flops don’t have a lot of possible draws, so there is not much variability. Wet flops have a lot of draws, and therefore a lot of variability. For example, if you have the nuts with K K and the flop is K 7 2 there is no turn card that can take away your nuts, except in the rare case that someone has a lower set and hits quads. This is a very low variability flop. But if your nuts were 10 10 on a flop of 10 9 5, there are a lot of turn cards that could turn your lock into the second best hand. This is a high variability flop.

In future columns, I will discuss all of these flop attributes in more detail. I will also cover how they interact with various pre-flop ranges, and how they influence you choice of plays. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow aka Zebra is a very successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 40 years. With two WSOP bracelets, over 50 cashes, and a few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his Vegas gaming time to poker, and can be found in cash games at Bellagio and at tournaments during the WSOP. When escaping from poker, he spends the spring and the fall in New York City where he hangs out at his bars: Doc Holliday’s, The Library and DBA.