So what are the odds of flopping a set? How deep do you and your opponent have to be to justify a call?

When picking up suited connectors, what are some factors that affect whether or not you call a standard 3x the blind raise. How deep-stacked do you and your opponent have to be to justify a call? I know being in position helps, but this is something I never understood. Its not very often that you will flop a flush or a straight, so lets look into a more likely scenario - flopping the flush draw or open-ended straight draw. I really dont see how position is pertinant when it comes to flopping the flush draw or OESD. I always thought that suited connectors were played like small pairs. You either flop what you're looking for or you dont. If you dont, you just muck it. The only thing that position affects is whether you're gonna be first or last to muck. Or maybe, now that I think about it, having position with suited connectors would make the draw easier to play if it was flopped. What about the odds you're being laid? How good does the odds you're getting on your money have to be if you're in position against the raiser? out of position? And what are the odds that you will flop a flush draw or a OESD with suited connectors?

And last but not least, the suited hands. I know I'm gonna come off as a donkey when i say that i like to play suited cards. But I will upgrade myself to a high-quality donkey by saying that I only play suited queens, kings, or aces. And maybe suited jacks if i'm really really deep-stacked. By the way, when i say suited jacks, i dont mean JcJc. I'm talking about Jc-Xc. Any comments on this philosophy?

Flame suit *fully fitted, suited, and secured*.

Odds for a flopped flush draw calculation, tell me if anyone sees anythign wrong with it, i made it up just now.

Assuming you are the only one with hearts in your hand, and you're dealt two hearts in a 9-handed game,

its 13-2 = 11 hearts left.

9 ppl x 2 cards to each person = 18 cards dealt out preflop

52-18 = 34 cards left preflop.

34 - 1 = 33 cards left after the 1st burn.

11/33 = the probability of one heart coming out.

1 heart comes out.

11-1 = 10 hearts left

33 - 1 = 32 cards left.

10/32 = the probability of a second heart coming out.

Now if i remmeber correctly, the probability of two events happening together is the probability of the first event x the probability of the second event. So the odds of flopping a flush draw would be the following then.

11/33 x 10/32 = 110/1056

110/1056 = 10.42%, approximately 10%.

90% of the time it doesnt happen to 10% of the time it happens

a.k.a.

9 to 1.

Ya, thats correct.

how exactly is knowing that 23-1 odds for a runner runner flush useful? If someone makes a bet against you, 23-1 odds is EXTREMELY rare. On top of that, the 23-1 odds counts only if you see the hand to the river. Calling a bet on the flop with 23-1 odds only ensures you see it to the turn, giving no statistical basis for a call. And if you are faced with an all-in bet on the flop, which would ensure you seeing the hand to the river, its still rare to be getting 23-1 odds there as well. GJ with your royal run BTW.

the only reason i do this, is because i remember reading something that DN wrote himself, suggesting to play the Ace-junk and King-junk and Queen-junk for flush draw/flush value. Why would he write this? I think it might have been in the hold'em wisdom book. Maybe its to get impressionable players like myself to play like donkeys so he can bust me in the future....

This post obviously comes off a bit donkish, but I think you already knew that when you typed it out. But we do have a lot of poker theory questions here, which are important. So lets see if I can help a bit.

Floping a set (with a pocket pair). About 7.5-1

I would say in generally you can call a standard opening bet with any pocket pair for set value as stacks are going to be deep enough in a cash game (>20bb), and it is calling 3-bets that you really need to consider the implied odds of your opponents stack. Though it is going to differ a lot on the particular oppoenent. Against a tight villain with a small opening range, you can call more loosely, as he will generally have a bigger hand that will be difficult to get away from. However, against a more laggy player, you will need to be getting better implied odds as it will be harder to stack a player without a real hand. Though, at this point if you think your oppenent might be reraising with a big range, maybe your best move is just to 3-bet rather than the flat call, and bring some fold equity into play.

As for suited connectors, calling here is similar to small pocket pairs, as we are looking for spots with good implied odds. In general this will be against deep stacked opponents in multi way pots. When calling, you need to consider how many people are already in the pot and how many people are likely to call behind (the more the better). Also playing drawing hands in position is ALWAYS better because you are easily able to see and calculate the odds your opponents are laying you.

With for just random suited cards, it your odds for winning a pot only goes up about 2% and I wouldn't get in the habit off calling off a lot of chips with K7s. These are the kind of hands that will get you in trouble.

Click here for radom poker odds

This is important, so take note. It took me a long time to figure out this leak:

I used to have the concept backwards:

(1) I would fold small pocket pairs versus tight players becauce I *knew* I was up against a big pair and was behind... even though our stacks were deep enough to speculate and I had great implied odds in this situation to get paid off.

(2) I would call with small pocket pairs against (good) LAG players, because I knew their pre-flop raising range was lagre. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account that these players played better post-flop than me, thus destroying me after the flop. Even if I hit a set, I can't be sure that I will get action since they raise so light, and may have nothing.

The real danger in playing the higher suited connectors is akin to a night of drinking Patron in Vegas: the possibility of marriage. If you have 78 or 89 and you get a 8-6-3 flop, you have connected with a pair of eights, and you can be pretty sure that flopped whiffed your opponent completely. Your only worry at this point is an overpair. When you hold J-10 or Q-J and the flop comes J-9-4 or Q-10-7 you have almost no clue if that flop hit your opponent, and how well it hit them. Your opponent bets out, you think "wow, top pair, I gotta see this through" and bam, you are in the danger zone, married to a marginal hand. You didn't play suited cards to get a high pair with no kicker, you are specifically looking for OESD and flush draws. Oddly enough, with lower connectors you have more options, because it's rare your opponent is going to have a 7 in his hand when he pops it 3.5x the BB in EP, so your 7-8 on a 7-5-2 flop is only in trouble to overpairs/overs, etc.

With the smaller connectors, as Royal said, you can win pots by mixing it up by representing large hands, and either win pre-flop or on the flop with a CB, but you aren't in the same danger of thinking "my Jack might be good here" and calling progressively bigger bets all the way down drawing slim. You can play big suited connectors like many poker articles suggest, but remember you are still playing them as connectors: so connect with them! Don't get trapped into thinking that you have showdown value with less than two pair. You want the FD or the SD, and you only want to be involved in the first place if your opponent has a deep enough stack to pay you off when you hit your hand hard. It does you no good to take J10sooted up against QQ if your opponent only has another 5 or so BBs left in his stack. You aren't going to hit often, you want to make sure you get paid when you do.

Believe me, we aren't going to turn our profit by making this play hoping to represent big pairs and bet high-card boards. Our one real added bonus is once we get caught in a couple showdowns flashing 8-9 after we bet hard preflop, we are going to get more action when we are dealt Kings and Aces later down the road, assuming the players at the table are even paying close attention to you in the first place (definitely not a guarantee at lower limits).

ODDS OF FLOPPING A FLUSH DRAW

You have two suited cards in your hand (say for example A 8 (not that it matters)). Since you will never know whether or not your opponents will have spades in your hand, you shouldn't factor this into your calculation. Ditto with the burn card.

So you have two spades in your hand and there are 11 spades remaining amongst the 50 unknown cards. The surefire way of getting the exact odds for a particular type of flop (in our case, a flush draw) is to count all the possible flops which meet your requirements (exactly two spades) and divide by all the possible flops.

TOTAL NUMBER OF FLOPS: We must choose 3 cards among 50 unknown: C(50,3) = (50*49*48)/(3*2*1) = 19600

TOTAL NUMBER OF FLOPS WITH EXACTLY TWO SPADES: We must choose 2 of the 11 remaining spades to show up on the flop. This can be done in C(11,2) = (11*10)/(2*1) = 55 ways.

We want the third card on the flop to be a non-spade (because we are looking at the odds of flopping a flush draw, not a made flush). There are 39 non-spade cards in the deck, none of which have been accounted yet. Therefore the number of flops containing *exactly* two spades is 55*39 = 2145


We finally calculate our probability of flopping a flush draw by dividing the second number (highlighted in blue) by the first (highlighted in red):

Probability of flopping a flush draw: 2145/19600 = 1/9.14

So roughly 1 in every 9 flops, you will flop four to a flush.

Cheers
Merby

Note that this is the standard approach to calculating the probability of catching a particular type of flop:

1) Count the total number of flops (if you only know your two hole cards then there are 19600 possible flops). Note that this number is different if you are evaluating omaha possibilities (where there are only 48 unknown cards) or there has been an exposed or flashed card.

2) Count the number of flops that fit your requirements

3) Divide the number obtained in step 2 by the number obtained in step 1. The result is the probability of catching that type of flop.

Soo...set mining HU: When is it a good idea? I'm 7.5 to 1 to hit my set. Let's say I call a standard pf raise (in position, deep-stacked) of 3-6bb. My opponent will mostly miss the flop, giving me action of ~ a pot sized bet before giving up. Therefore, in order to get correct effective odds, I'm relying on him to have/make a hand when the flop comes down, and pay me off. Against a good LAG or a loose-weak player, is this unlikely to the point of being -EV? And how tight would you like your opponent to be for this to become a good play? Multiway it seems good regardless of your opponents.

Good position helps a lot of ways.

• If we call in early position with a suited connector, it's more likely that someone will raise after we act. This may be too much for us to pay for a flop.
• We can choose to check behind on the flops when our opponents try to check-raise.
• If it's checked around on the flop, we can sometimes steal even without outs.
• After our draw hits, it's much easier to get paid in position. If our opponents check to us, then they don't know if we're just betting into weakness or if we have the goods. If our opponents bet into us, then we're already getting paid.
• If it turns out we didn't have the best draw, we can sometimes escape without getting stacked by watching the action in front of us.

Yes, this is all true. Poker is a game of information and the more information you get the better your decisions will be. Position gives you that information because you can see how your opponents react to the flop/turn/river. Using that information you can make your plays with that added information to give you an advantage.

I think you miss the point of position because you aren't considering what your opponents holdings are. For you its "did I hit the flush/straight/set or not" and that determines your decision from then on out. That's fine for beginning players, but if you play these hands like that then you should avoid playing these hands. Like some of the other posters said, good players can play these speculative hands like small pairs and suited connectors because they are able to put their opponents on a good range of hands and act accordingly. This is especially true of playing suited trash like jack rag, queen rag, and many of the king rag and ace rag hands. Sometimes you don't hit your flush, but you flop a pair, and good players will be able to read a situation and determine if their pair is good or not. Or other times you flop nothing at David N said above, but you know your opponent probably has nothing and with position you can take it away from them. Until you get to that point though where you can start to think about what others have and use position correctly I think you should avoid playing the speculative hands except in easy situations.

well the idea behind flopping a back door draw (either for the straight or for the flush) isn't that you're playing the hand because you have a back door draw...


i'm probably not explaining my logic correctly here so i'll try to set a little example up...

**for me personally!!!***


lets say i enter the pot in LP w/ 67 hearts...

lets say there's no crazy PF action for sake of argument (and because i'm trying to set this up off the head)


flop comes 4h 6c 8s

mid pair, gut shot, & back door straight / flush draws... (by the back door SD i mean a scenario where say a 9 or 10 rolls off on the turn)


you're not playing your back door flush draw... all it is is something to consider, as it is a posibility that you make this hand... so lets say someone made a smallish raise PF & you called on button & bb completes... checks to MP bettor who then cbets... i'm not only thinking that i have mid pair & a gut shot.. but also that lets say the turn card comes the 2h, all of a sudden my hand's drastically improved (IF my 6s aren't already good, either way the quality of the hand has gone up regardless) so now you have 2nd pair, a gutty, AND the flush draw...

nobody on earth plays a back door draw specifically hoping to make that back door draw by its self... it's kinda like the cherry on top of the sundae if you catch my analogy... that little extra scoop of sugar / cream in your coffe kinda deal..

the idea behind the back door heart draw is more along the lines of outs you can catch on the turn to improve your hand...


like if i flop a gutshot vs i flop a gut shot w/ a back door FD... sure it's hardly any better.. but it does give you more chances to improve throughout the course of the hand... and it just looks a little prettier...

that's my own logic behind back door draws.. say it's checked around on the flop & you then pick up the FD on the turn.. that's a posibility you dont have w/o the back door draw...


still - you should never play a hand where you're only gonna win if you hit runner runner... ie Ac2c flop's 9s 8c 10h....





that's my rambling on the back door.. PLZ criticize my logic here if it seems improper!!! i love the discussion & hearing concurring / opposing points of view..besides, nobody ever got any better at anything by guessing...

vs where you're OOP & hit the 5 high flush & bet then get called raised & rerased all in.. better to have not even bet @ all right? that's the beauty of position..

never forget position is ONE OF the most impt things in poker...

A few thoughts:

-Speaking as a former limit player who's making the adjustment to NL, the backdoor flush draw is worth approximately one extra out. So yeah, don't go chasing them alone, just like you wouldn't chase a one-outer alone. But they add value. The implied odds on them are especially attractive, because everyone who flops top pair on a two-flush board is worried about the third flush card coming, but they're a lot less likely to worry when the backdoor comes through. The more hidden your draw is, the more likely you are to get paid when it comes through.

-Position gives you a lot more postflop options with small pairs or suited connectors, and that can make all the difference in terms of their expected value. Let's say you call OOP with 6h7h. The flop comes Ah9c3h. You're probably going to check and hope that your opponent's bet doesn't wreck your implied odds. Your opponent bets 1/2 the pot, you call getting 3:1. He probably has an AK or AQ-type hand, but might also by c-betting a decent pocket pair. The Jd comes on fourth street. You check and again hope your opponent's bet isn't too huge. With a good ace, your opponent bets 1/2 the pot again, giving you 3:1 on a 4:1 draw. With QQ, he often gives the free card. The river is the 4h. Woohoo! But your opponent is fully aware of the flush getting there, so he can probably get away from an AK-type hand if you bet big, and he's got a pretty easy fold with the high pocket pair. So you either make a smallish "pay me" bet or try for the check-raise, only to be disappointed when he checks right behind you. Main point is that your opponent was in control of the hand the entire time. You risked a lot, had very little information, could hardly bluff, all to get paid not very much when your draw hit.

Now flip the positions. Your opponent is going to bet hard with AK-type hands on this flop. He might c-bet with big pocket pairs, might check. The options vary according to how tricky he is, what sort of betting lines he usually takes. Anyway, he isn't going to be happy when you call his flop bet. On the turn, he has to decide whether to escalate the pot with one pair, out of position, shut down with a pair less than an ace, or try to bet big enough to force out the flush draw. He doesn't know if you flopped a set, made a dirty two pair, just floated the flop, or are on the obvious draw. If he checks, which many players will, you get to decide whether to try to bluff him off a pair below aces or take the free card. Then when the river completes your flush, he's going to check his AK-type hands or make a blocking bet. You then bet/raise. If he checked, he's likely to call your bet. If he bet, he's folding, but you still made more money. Way more profit, and waaaaaay more profit potential, on every street.

Finally, regarding when the stacks are deep enough, I like th 50bb rule of thumb, but the much bigger question is what their betting pattern is like. Some players at 1-2 and 2-5 can't fold aces to an all-in on a 6-7-10-j-9 board. Against them, I'll play unsuited connectors preflop if the stacks are 100 bb deep. Others can fold top pair, top kicker on the flop if a TAG check-raises them. Implied odds are both about the cards in each of your hands and about your playing styles. Sets have better implied odds against some players than others.

are you talking about in a HU game or a full ring game where you just happen to have gotten to heads up after preflop action?

In a HU match, your not really set mining, as your opponents range to raise will be very high, meaning they could have almost anything, thus your pair is probably already good from the start, play it as so. (your not going to get paid off here for sets too often)

On the other hand in a full ring game, obv your opponents raising range is going to be much smaller, and while he will miss the flop the same % of the time, you have to give him credit for starting the hand with a made hand already.

(I typed this reply like 12 hours ago, and for some reason never posted it, hope it is still relevant)

Nope, it's no longer relevant. In the last 12 hours the game of hold'em has vastly changed...

Lawl.

I meant full ring that gets to HU. Suppose you're on the button with a small pair--do you want to call a pf raise from a deep-stacked LAG? Or is this a losing play in the long run?

pocket pairs should definitely be in your your calling range preflop to a standard opening bet. particularly deep stacked. In fact the deeper your stacks, the wider your range should be. Plus if your on the button, you have position going for you here too, again widening your range.

For example, if you're sitting with a million dollars and the villian has over a quarter of a million dollars, it's ok to call a third raise for $8200 OOP with 24 soooted.

BB FTW!