ITH Poker Forum

[mchilger]

I'm pleased to announce that Ed Miller, author of Small Stakes Hold'em, No-Limit Theory and Practice, and Getting Started in Hold'em, will be our featured guest in July for the "Ask an Expert" Forum. He is also co-author of the upcoming Professional No-Limit Hold'em.

Many people may not realize, but Ed joined the ITH Forums in 2004 and has made over 150 posts here. It will be great having him back in July specifically to answer your questions. Be sure to visit his website/blog, http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/ , which has some excellent articles and discussions.

Matthew

[Ed Miller]

Hi Matthew and everyone else,

Glad to be here for July. I'm excited to talk poker with you guys.

Ed

[fxrenegade]

Hi Ed,

I've always wandered why a lot of players go all-in with nothing but a flush draw on the flop. Is it profitable? I've made some calls with my TPTK against some of the draws. Sometimes, they rivered their flush, sometimes not. In the long run, is it profitable to go all-in with:

1. Gutshot flush draw (12 outs)
2. Flush draw (9 outs)
3. OESD with flush draw (15 outs)

I'm pretty bad with math, I can't seem to figure out when it is good to call with my TPTK against Villain's all-in bet on the flop(with their flush draw). In the long run, I don't know if I'm good if I keep making calls like these.

Thanks for you time.

[Ed Miller]

Hi Ed,

I've always wandered why a lot of players go all-in with nothing but a flush draw on the flop. Is it profitable? I've made some calls with my TPTK against some of the draws. Sometimes, they rivered their flush, sometimes not. In the long run, is it profitable to go all-in with:

1. Gutshot flush draw (12 outs)
2. Flush draw (9 outs)
3. OESD with flush draw (15 outs)

I'm pretty bad with math, I can't seem to figure out when it is good to call with my TPTK against Villain's all-in bet on the flop(with their flush draw). In the long run, I don't know if I'm good if I keep making calls like these.

Thanks for you time.

It can indeed be quite profitable to move in on the flop with just a flush draw. To figure out a draw's chance of getting there by the river, you can multiply the number of outs by 4. (It's an estimate that's more accurate at 9 outs than at 15, but it's good enough for general use.)

So for 9 outs, you have about a 36% chance of getting there by the river. 12 outs is 48%, and 15 outs is 60%.

Here's why it's good to move all-in sometimes. Say you start with $100 in a $1-$2 game. Someone makes it $10 preflop, and the (soon-to-be) flush draw calls. There's $20 in the pot, and $90 left. The flop comes, and the raiser bets $20. You can raise $70 more all-in, which is just slightly more than the pot.

Whenever you bet the pot, you're getting even odds on your opponent folding. That is, if he folds, you win about what you bet, so even if you never ever won when he called, if he folds 50% of the time or more, the bluff is good. But with the flush draw, you'll win 36% of the time when called, so he doesn't have to fold even close to 50% to make the all-in good. Usually your opponent will fold enough to make it worthwhile.

The all-in bet gets dicier if the stack sizes are much larger so the all-in is 2 or 3 times the pot size. But even then it can be a good play.

As for when it's good to call with TPTK, it's a tricky question. I can't really give you good guidance just in one post, but it's covered in depth in my new book Professional No Limit Hold'em coming out this month. If you're interested, you can check out an excerpt here.

[fxrenegade]

So, with a flush draw, effective stacks at 100bb, it's always profitable to go all-in on the flop with some fold equity? It does make sense to me. So, if Villain folds his TPTK about 50% of the time, we profit? That's only if we put the villain on TPTK right?

I think I get it. Thanks for your reply. I've been reading the 2p2 forum, can barely wait for your new book to arrive at amazon.

[Ed Miller]

So, with a flush draw, effective stacks at 100bb, it's always profitable to go all-in on the flop with some fold equity? It does make sense to me. So, if Villain folds his TPTK about 50% of the time, we profit? That's only if we put the villain on TPTK right?

I think I get it. Thanks for your reply. I've been reading the 2p2 forum, can barely wait for your new book to arrive at amazon.

I didn't mean to suggest it was always the best play, especially with 100BB stacks (note in my example there were 50BB stacks). But it can often be a good play.

[fxrenegade]

I've read the excerpt from your book. Isn't raising 6xbb with your big PP, a sure way to definite your hand preflop and offering implied odds to the villain? Considering that effective stacks is at 100bb, you raise to 6xbb:

1. Villain knows that you're probably on a Big PP if you only raise big with AA, KK.
2. Villain can call with any small-medium PP, spike a set and stack you when you bet the pot on the flop,

[fxrenegade]

So, with a flush draw, effective stacks at 100bb, it's always profitable to go all-in on the flop with some fold equity? It does make sense to me. So, if Villain folds his TPTK about 50% of the time, we profit? That's only if we put the villain on TPTK right?

I think I get it. Thanks for your reply. I've been reading the 2p2 forum, can barely wait for your new book to arrive at amazon.

I didn't mean to suggest it was always the best play, especially with 100BB stacks (note in my example there were 50BB stacks). But it can often be a good play.

So, it's only applicable if we're short stack?

[Ed Miller]

The answer to your question about readability with big pocket pairs is... if you play like we suggest in the book, no, you won't be readable and easily picked off by small pocket pairs. But I could see how you would wonder about that given just what's in the excerpt... it's really just the introduction to a somewhat involved (but quite powerful) system of hand planning.

In other words, we definitely don't advocate, "Raise 6BB with big pocket pairs and 3BB with other hands." It's nothing like that.

As for moving in with flush draws being applicable only with short stacks... that's not quite true. First of all, all the math changes when there's multiple people in the hand or if the preflop action has been bigger. For instance, if someone raises preflop, gets two callers, and I call on the button with a big suited ace. I flop a flush draw, and the flop action goes 2/3 pot bet and call, I might jam with my flush draw even with a fairly deep stack. The extra money in the pot makes me more inclined to jam.

But when the stacks are deep, sometimes you want to semibluff raise the flop, but not necessarily all-in. Say you flop a small flush draw on a 886 (paired) flop. You called a 3BB preflop raise, and then the preflop raiser bets 4BB on the flop. You might raise him to 12BB or so if there are 100BB left.

The reason that's good is because if you get reraised off your draw, often you're actually avoiding trouble because sometimes you'll be drawing thin to a bigger flush draw or to trips or even a made boat.

So there are lots of variables... stack sizes, number of players and how they play, the nature of the board, etc. Sometimes pushing with flush draws makes sense, and sometimes either a smaller raise or just a call makes sense.

[mchilger]

Please start a new thread with any new questions.

Tx, Matthew