i recently pulled up a tournament on youtube, in which, on the first hand, Daniel N. flopped a flush draw, and shoved. He didn’t hit, lost to a set, and was out.
i think i read somewhere what the odds of hitting a flush with suited hole cards are. does anyone know what the odds Daniel faced were?
i’ve wondered this for a while, as i tend to gamble on that same draw, now and then.
According to my friend google (and I’m sure that he is nice enough to answer you as well if you ask him), the odds of being dealt any 2 suited cards are 3.3 - 1 (or 24%), if you have 2 suited cards the odds of flopping a flush are 118 - 1 (or 0.84%), and with 2 suited cards the odds of making a flush by the river are 15 - 1 (or 6.4%).
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a flushdraw is usually a good hand to be semi bluffing on. don’t know the actual hand so i cant give an depth analysis on it but since you already hold decent equity of your draw, you just need a bit more fold equity to make the semi bluff profitable.
as for the actual odds:
being dealt suited cards: almost 25%
being dealt specific suited cards: almost 6,25%
with suited cards…
flopping a flush is about 118:1
flopping a flushdraw is about 8:1
playing a flushdraw:
first of all it’s important to understand how to play your draws for the right reason.
to know the odds of a flushdraw (any any other draw) i usually use the rule of 4&2 to figure out my odds, this way of calculating isn’t 100% accurate but it’s defenitely close enough to use it profitably. the rule of 4&2 means you take amount of outs and multiply them by 2 to know your odds of hitting your draw by the next card. however if you wanna know your odds for the next 2 cards you multiply it by 4 instead, however you also need to know that you only use the x4 when it’s an all-in situation, simply because when it’s not you still usually have to pay more when the turn comes.
as for the odds, when using the rule of 4&2 we have about 18% to hit our flush
with that in mind i’ll try to explain why to play it a certain way:
bet or raise:
when you bet or raise your draw, it’s meant as a semi bluff. the intention is to get your opponent to fold the (best) hand and yet you do have decent equity as a backup in case you get called. so of course, when you do this you also need some fold equity to make it profitable. which means the tighter they play postflop, the better it works. the best players are the ones who play fit or fold or just play tight in general and the worst are the ones that love to call Cbets or just are loose in general.
a very different reason to bet might be when your opponent likes to lead out at a sign of weakness, in that case you would also bet, only just a smaller amount, when you decide to make a blocker bet it needs to be low enough to make it as cheap as possible but high enough that your opponent doesn’t see this as a sign of weakness as well and decides to raise over it
call or check:
checking when you are last is rarely a bad thing as you know for sure you are getting a free card, the only reason not to is when you have a nit against you that almost always folds, or when you face a strong player and need to balance your ranges, of course this also means your opponents needs a small value range, of course that always the case but vs a good player even more so. as for checking OOP, this is especcialy good vs passive players as they love to call and check themself meaning you have low fold equity but a good chance for a nice price to see the next card. whhen it comes to a call try to figure out first if you have good fold equity for a semi bluff or god pot odds for a call, in case you are going for teh call, you obviously try figure out the pot odds first, but also the implied odds, but to do that you need to know how likely your opponent is to bet or call a bet when you hit. know that your implied odds are always better on the flop then on the turn (because you can extract 2 rounds of value instead of 1) also try to consider your reverse implied odds in case the board is paired (especialy double paired) double pairs are always crippling your flushes, single pairs usually matter when you’re deep stacked but also consider this at a mid stack. so this means that you can call when your odds are right. calling is especcialy good vs an aggressive opponent because you will have a lot more implied odds, just don’t forget that even though your implied odds are good, it at least as much important to get good pot odds, you can get a little off the pot odds as long as your implied odds are good, only just not too much.
fold:
this one is simple, you fold if none of the ponts mentioned apply and you get bad odds to call your draw
one other thing:
also keep in mind that the odds are only based on the assumption that you’re drawing to the nuts, any draw that isn’t the nuts should also have to take into coinsiderantion that there are also reverse implied odds, which means your average % to win is lower and when you do lose you often lose a massive pot. don’t take this the wrong way, it’s not like you can’t play a big pot with kh8h with 3 hearts when facing a bet, it just means you don’t try to blow up pots with weak flushes and always play it carefully. and of course, when you are pretty certain you are facing a hand range that likes to pay a lot and yet is weaker then yours then you totally go for it. however when you’re not that sure try to keep the pot under control.
hope this helps, gl.
yiazmat
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thanks. i checked out the link. very informative. for someone who wears google out, when working on my car, i never thought about chasing down poker strategy sites.
thanks for your post. i’ve reread it a few times, and probably will again. very helpful.
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