Poker Strategy With Jonathan Little: Playing A Pair With A Flush DrawLearn To Crush Games At PokerCoaching.com/CardPlayer |
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Jonathan Little
In a $3,500 buy-in live poker tournament with blinds at 50-100 with 30,000 effective stacks, a good loose, aggressive player raised to 300 from the button. One of my students decided to just call from the big blind with 10
10
.
While you should usually three-bet your best hands, calling is a perfectly acceptable option with many of your playable, but non-premium hands against an aggressive player who is capable of putting you in difficult post-flop situations even in three-bet pots. Many strong, but non-premium hands (such as 10-10 and A-J) play well called compared to three-bet when deep stacked from out of position because they usually flop marginal made hands that prefer to keep the pot manageable.
While three-betting preflop extracts some value from worse hands, it also maximizes your risk of losing a large pot against strong loose, aggressive players who will play well after the flop.
The flop came Q 9 2, giving my student middle pair with a decent flush draw. He checked and the button bet 175 into the 650 pot.
Check-calling is the only play that makes sense. With your marginal made hands, you want to see a cheap showdown, at least until it becomes clear that your made hand is best.
When your opponent is betting, even when he bets small, it is easy for you to be behind. Notice that even if you are behind top pair or a weak flush, you have outs to improve to a 10-high flush. This makes folding out of the question.
Check-raising has no merit because your opponent will mostly call with top pair and better made hands, and strong draws. You should much prefer to check-call, forcing your opponent to stay in with his entire continuation betting range.
My student called. The turn was the 8. He checked and the button bet 600 into the 1,000 pot.
As on the flop, check-calling is the only play that has any merit. The turn card did not hurt your hand too much, besides the fact that you now lose to J-10, 9-8, and 8-8. If you were behind on the flop, you picked up a few outs to a straight.
Again, with a marginal made hand, check-raising has no merit (unless you think your opponent will fold all top pairs and perhaps weak two-pairs to a check/raise).
My student called. The river was the 3
. My student checked and the button bet 2,100 into the 2,200 pot.
When your opponent takes the line of small bet, normal bet, large bet, he should have a polarized range by the river. This means that you are almost certainly against an overpair, two-pair, set, flush, or busted draw.
Notice that there are a bunch of potential busted draws, such as A-J, K-J, A-10, K-10, and nut flush draws. While some of the other draws improved to a pair, you would not put it past a strong loose, aggressive player to turn a hand like A 2
or J 8 into a bluff. This should lead you to make a hero call, at least until you have more information about your opponent’s tendencies. Of course, if your opponent thinks you are a calling station, you should fold. If he thinks that he can push you around, you should call.
My student decided to call due to having the read that the opponent was loose and aggressive, plus the two tens blocked the flush and straight. The opponent showed A 3 for a busted flush draw.
By check-calling down, my student gave the button the chance to improve to a second-best hand that could pay off one bet, as well as the chance to run a bluff. Especially when you crush all the marginal made hands and bluffs, you should check, giving your opponent every possible opportunity to make a significant blunder.
In exchange for giving them the betting lead, they will occasionally catch up, resulting in you losing the pot, but that is the price you pay in exchange for keeping them in when they are drawing thin.
I created a simple flowchart that has five questions you should always ask yourself when deciding if you should call on the river with a bluff catcher. I also recorded a short video that shows you how to use this flowchart by going through two hand examples!
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Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT winner and the 2024 PokerGO Cup champion with nearly $9 million million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.
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