Seven Card Stud: Playing Flush Draws

Going “flushing” in Stud High is always exciting, but as fun as it is, we shouldn’t automatically get married to the hand. Three flushes are often a quality start; however, the overall strength of the holding is greatly impacted by the liveness of the suits you seek, the presence of big cards and/or straight possibilities, your door card, and how many opponents you expect to contest the pot.

Given the factors above, you may either have a holding worthy of ramming and jamming on third street, or possibly one that should probably be sent straight to the muck. At an eight-handed table, the approximate probabilities of making a flush given how many of your suits you see exposed are as follows:

As you can see, there is quite a difference between your hand being 100% live versus one where many of your suits are showing. In fact with three of the cards you need gone, it’s only half as likely that you will end up making a flush.

The poker gods also seem to enjoy punishing those that get involved with a hand that should have been folded at the onset.

Suppose a nine open-completes, a queen reraises, and you come along with 10 (5 2) with three diamonds exposed. With no overcards or good straight possibilities, this hand shouldn’t have been played. What usually happens here is that you will be delivered a diamond on fourth street, get jammed in between a few raises on a few streets, and end up bricking the rest of the way. It’s like magic, so spare yourself the agony.

Holding a big card or two higher than a possible pair that might be out against you adds a tremendous amount of value to your holding. And if your suits are relatively live, one can start piling chips into the pot without a care in the world on who chooses to comes along, or who doesn’t.

For example, if instead only one diamond was dead, and you also had an ace in the hole, it would be an easy cold “four-bet.” (In Stud a raise of a completion is technically a two-bet making your play a three-bet, however in game it feels like a four-bet).

If the nine gets out of the way it increases the odds of winning the pot by pairing, but if he chooses to get stubborn, that’s fine too.

With really strong live draws it’s preferable to escalate the pot from the start, and avoid getting too fixated on trying to pull in players in an attempt to promote a multi-way pot. No one else might enter when just calling, and my style is to just simply pump up the pot for value. If people still want to come in, then great, but it’s also fine if it goes heads-up.

Heads-up your winning chances increase in various ways; you are more likely to win with a single pair or your single opponent might fear you have a big pair and fold before showdown.

Our three-flush doesn’t always have to be very live in order to play. For example, if we have a strong reason to believe that the antes could possibly be won uncontested, we should open 10 (5 2) even if three or four diamonds are on board.

We can also get aggressive with a large door card against an opponent that is generally unafraid to attempt a steal through a big card. For example, if we are to the direct right of the bring-in with a three-flush headed by a king, we can reraise a “speeder” showing a queen even if two or maybe even three of our suits are dead.

Playing in this manner represents a big pair, and may possibly induce our opponent to either fold immediately, or perhaps on fifth street. Our opponent might not have a pair of queens, and if he appears to blank out on fourth and fifth street, it’s often best to continue telling the story even when failing to improve.

Remember, the struggle over the antes is an important battle to win in Stud, and we should often commence hostilities against those that are somewhat likely to be on a steal. Our skilled opponents will also be in there trying to do the same thing, and thus sometimes the shoe will be on the other foot where we get reraised by a higher door card.

For example, suppose we open from a steal position with a three-flush headed by a queen (with only one or two of our suit dead), and get reraised by a combative opponent with a king door. If we pick up a four-flush on fourth street, many players opt to raise here, and while that’s certainly a viable option, it might be better to wait until fifth street for a few reasons.

An aggressive opponent might bet both fourth and fifth with very little, and we would usually make a little more by delaying. In addition, when raising on fourth, most players will also put us on the exact hand that we have and play accordingly, but our holding might be more disguised when instead putting in the action on fifth.

For example, if we bump it up on fifth showing Q 8 3 (X-X), our opponent might be more apt to put us on a holding such as queens up or trips. If he has something like a pair of sevens in the hole, he will dislike the situation even though he often has outs.

While it may be a little too optimistic to think he will fold in this situation, he might, and at a minimum we will then often get an opportunity to take a free card on sixth street. However, if he does call, we have around a 30-35% chance of making a flush to fall back upon. And in some situations, pairing either the queen or eight might win us the pot.

Looking down at a three-flush in Stud High is a pleasant sight, but we must become adept at evaluating the strength of our holding in relation to the situation we face. Most of the times we should be proactive in putting extra chips into the middle as we are building a strong hand and doing so may also help us win in another manner. The times our hand isn’t very good, we make money by saving bets when folding dead hands that offer few other possibilities. ♠

Kevin Haney is a former actuary but left the corporate job to focus on his passions for poker and fitness. The certified personal trainer owned a gym in New Jersey, but has since moved to Las Vegas. He started playing the game back in 2003, and particularly enjoys taking new players interested in mixed games under his wing and quickly making them proficient in all variants. Learn more or just say hello with an email to [email protected].