Building big pots with draws

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 27 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

By betting out you give yourself a chance of winning a big pot when you hit, a small pot when your opponent folds to your aggression, and losing a smallish one when you miss - clearly a good result.

One of the hallmarks of good hold'em players is that they nearly always try and fire out or raise when they flop a big draw (either a two card flush draw or open ended straight draw - both of which have around a 30% chance of hitting if turn and river are seen). Conversely, weak hold'em players often check call or check behind with these hands, keen to hit first and then try and build the pot.

The problem with playing draws like this very timidly is that it is much harder in hold'em to win a big pot without building the pot on multiple streets. Although you will only hit your hand around 30% of the time, when you do hit you will have an extremely good chance of winning the pot, and can thus fire out a big river bet with impunity (typically in hold'em this will be a pot size all in bet if you have bet every street - a bet size which will often be 50bb+, and its the winning of bets this size that really make the difference to winning and losing in no limit hold'em). If you just call or check, your opponent gets the chance to just call a river bet of around 10-20bb if you hit, drastically reducing your win rate on flushes and straights.

Compare playing draws like this to playing a hand like top pair in the same way. If you had fired flop and turn with top pair and got called, do you really want to put the rest of your stack in on the river if a flush or straight appears with just that? Although you were probably slightly ahead when you fired flop and turn, the fact that you cannot get to showdown without putting in the rest of your stack makes your hand much weaker than it first appeared. Remember that no limit hold'em is a game that is as much to do with thinking about future action as it is about you and your opponent's hand, and building pots with hands that have little potential to develop into monsters can often be very dangerous.

You have very bad reverse implied odds when you build a pot with a big draw. If you hit, you will win a big pot. If you miss, you can check it down or try and bluff it if you feel the situation is right. And you can win the pot through your aggression forcing a player off a winning hand. As a result, these are actually much stronger hands than many weak players think, as although you do not always hit with them, when you do, you nearly always win a large amount of money, which more than pays for the times you miss and can just check or fold the river a solid percentage of the time. By betting out you give yourself a chance of winning a big pot when you hit, a small pot when your opponent folds to your aggression, and losing a smallish one when you miss - clearly a good result.

Related Entries

Building big pots with big hands
Passing up small edges
Bet sizing heads-up

Get Valueback at Betfair Poker