Honestly Evaluating Draws

Distributed By Wise Hand Poker, Apr 2007

You’re in late position in a $1-$2 blind no-limit hold’em game. Two of your opponents limp, and you do the same with T♠9♠. A player behind you also limps, the small blind completes, and the big blind checks. The pot is $12, and you have five opponents going into the flop.

The flop is 9♦8♠7♠. The first two players check, the next player bets $8, and the player to his left calls. You have top pair, an outside straight draw, and a flush draw. In total, 20 cards in the deck improve your hand. Additionally, your top pair might already be good…excellent times, right?

Outs And Winning Outs Aren’t The Same

Assume that your top pair isn’t good for a moment. With your T♠9♠, you still have 20 outs. Twenty outs is huge since you’ll hit your draw over 50% of the time with only 13 outs on the flop. The question is this: do you have 20 winning outs? You don’t win money at poker by drawing to second-best hands, so when evaluating your outs, you need to put your opponents on hand distributions to determine if you’re possibly facing better draws.

No one raised preflop; therefore, you are probably not facing an overpair. Additionally, we can probably rule out A♠K♠ and A♠Q♠. Outside of that, almost anything is game. With a flop of 9♦8♠7♠ in an unraised pot, many of the hands you’ll be facing on this are sets, two pair, made straights, higher flush draws, and straight draws to the same straight you’re drawing to. You also might be facing K9, Q9, or J9, all which have you outkicked.

Your top pair doesn’t fair well against the potential made hands you’re facing, your draw to two pair puts a 4-straight on the board, your flush draw might be drawing against a better flush draw, and your straight draw might be drawing to a chopped pot. These are not excellent times.

Be Disciplined And Always Take Time Before Acting

When you have a big draw, it’s easy to become excited, but you really need to assess honestly how good your draw actually is (in fact, you should always take time to craft your decisions carefully before acting). With a dangerous draw like this, you should consider playing passively to keep the size of the pot small. As soon as you deduce that an opponent is drawing to a higher flush and that your top pair is beaten, be disciplined and muck. A lot of money is lost in no-limit hold’em when good hands are beaten by better hands…if you can prevent yourself from being on the losing side in these situations, your profits will improve substantially.