Straight draws

	You can therefore play your hand as if it is a flush draw, looking to take down the pot on the appearance of any flush card on the turn or river

In the last piece I presented you with the following situation: you are in the middle stages of a multi-table tournament with blinds at 500/1,000. You have an average stack of 35k in the small blind and pick up K?-Q?.

Three people limp, one from early position, one from mid position and one from the button. You make up the blind and the player in the big blind checks. The flop comes J?– 10?-5? and you are first to act. At this point, I suggested that with four players in the pot, leading out is not the most profitable move and it would be better to check and see what transpires.

I also recommended that you should fold if one player bets and another calls or one player bets and another raises. However, if only one player bets and everyone passes to you, then continuing in the hand is a viable possibility.

ASSIGN HAND RANGES

Let’s say the early-position player checks, the middle-position player bets 3,600 and the button passes. With two players still to act behind you and the possibility that one of them could be trapping, you don’t want to get too deep with your open- ended straight draw, but it does have some potential.

At this point, you need to start thinking about the middle- position player’s likely holding. His hand will fall into one of four categories: a very strong hand (say J-10 or 5-5); a medium-strength hand (K-J or A-10); a drawing hand (A?-3? or 8-9); or a complete bluff. Based on any knowledge of the middle-position bettor you might have, you can start to assign percentages to each of the possible categories. Let’s say for example you assume this player to be bluffing with no hand 10% of the time, and you assign each of the other categories an equal 30%. If you opt to call, you are giving yourself two ways to win. You can potentially crack a big hand by making your straight, but you also give yourself a chance to win the hand on the 70% of the time your opponent does not have a very strong holding – providing you play the later streets well.

Given these assumptions, I would recommend flat-calling the bet. Hopefully the players behind you will get out of the way. If any of them do decide to call, this will have to impact your thought processes for the rest of the hand (you can probably put them on some type of draw themselves) but let’s assume they fold. The pot now stands at 12k; you have 30.5k behind. From the point of view of your opponent, your hand probably now looks like either a flush draw or some type of top pair hand. Conventional logic would suggest that you are unlikely to be slow-playing a very strong hand on this board. Whether or not you actually would slow-play a strong hand here is not as relevant as the fact that most people will assume you wouldn’t. My plan for this hand would be to use this fact to my advantage.

The draw that most people will automatically assume you have is a flush draw – most will often be blinded by the presence of the flush draw, so much so that they forget about the straight possibilities. You can therefore play your hand as if it is a flush draw, looking to take down the pot on the appearance of any flush card on either the turn or the river, in addition to your six other straightening cards.

Of course, if your opponent is actually holding the flush draw then you will lose the pot, but hopefully you are able to develop your read as the hand unfolds and begin to narrow his range further.

BLANK TURN

Should a blank card hit the turn I would usually check again to my opponent and see his reaction. It is very unlikely that he will check behind with any strong made hands, so a check here really does show weakness and would suggest that any King or Queen will probably be good enough for you to win the pot at showdown, along with any Ace or 9.

Of course all of this depends on the tendencies of the player, but in most cases I would now be focusing my opponents’ range on the medium- strength one-pair type hands that are checking to keep the pot small.

On the river, I would be prepared to bet any diamond, straightening card or picture card. However, I would not be planning to bluff should any other card fall, as your opponent is too likely to assume you have a busted (flush) draw and will call you too often to make this a profitable long-term play.

Still, for an meagre investment of 3,500 after the flop (out of 34k), you’ve managed to see two extra cards and put yourself in a situation where a total of 19 cards can hit that should enable you to win the pot.

KEY POINT

When the flop presents both flush and straight possibilities, players will often assume the flush is the danger hand. If you’re on a straight draw you can use this thinking to your advantage and represent the flush if it hits

TOUGH TURN

If your opponent fires again on the turn then your decision is slightly tougher. Hands that are likely to bet again are either the strong made hands or possibly the drawing/bluff hands, as more aggressive opponents will keep the pressure up with these on the turn. In this situation I would normally favour a fold, for several reasons.

Firstly, you are not getting a good price to make your draw, even if you make the (dangerous) assumption that the A? and 9? are live for you. To call any bet larger than around 2,500 with the sole aim of hitting your draw, while folding when you miss, is not a profitable play. To call and try to bluff when you miss is a high-risk play with no real logic behind it other than ‘I’ve missed my draw so I’m going to try to bet you off your hand’, and to a skilled opponent this is exactly what it will look like.

Before you make a play such as this you should have good reasoning as to why you think your opponent is weak or why you think you can represent a big hand and make him fold a better one. Here you have neither. Essentially you are just creating a big pot out of position, and unless you get lucky on the river, you are likely to be forced into a position where you have to fold.

The point about position is crucial. If the positions were reversed and you were calling bets from mid position, against a player betting out from the small blind, you would have several different options open to you. In this scenario, you could perhaps build a case for calling a bet on the turn. The argument is that you’d have the crucial advantage of acting second after the river card is dealt.

Then, if the flush draw is completed on the river, and your opponent checks or makes a weak blocking bet, you could continue to represent the flush and bet/ raise accordingly.

However, while you are out of position, calling a bet on the turn is too dangerous. When it’s your turn to act on the river, you will still not know how your opponent likes the flush card that has come. Ultimately you risk losing a big portion of your stack if you attempt to represent the flush while your opponent is in fact holding it.

KEY POINT

If your opponent bets the turn and you miss your draw it’s very difficult for you to carry on in the hand out of position. If you want to call, you need a good reason to believe that your opponent is weak or that you can make him think you have a better hand