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Articles > Why Draws Are Bad in Holdem |
| Why Draws Are Bad in Holdem July 4, 2005 |
| I have done some calculations about flush draws in Holdem and it turns out that although it is usually never correct to fold a flush draw after the flop even when there isn't that much money in the pot, it is still not a profitable hand in the long run. In other words, once you see the flop you will make more money by staying in than by folding. However, not getting to see the flop by never playing the hand in the first place (assuming you are not in the blind) is even more preferable if all you have going is the flush draw and your opponent has top pair. I will illustrate various flush draw scenario's below: Case 1: You are playing 54 of hearts vs AK offsuit heads up in a 50-100 limit Holdem game. Both of you are in the blind and there was no raise preflop, so there is $100 in the pot. The flop gives your opponent top pair and gives you the flush draw. You check and your opponent bets out, what should you do? Fold! Why? You cannot bluff your opponent out here. Since it is heads up, he will never fold his aces or kings regardless of what you do or what comes out. ou must make your hand in order to win. While you could hit runner runner two pair or possibly runner runner straight, realize that your opponent could hit runner runner full house while you hit the flush and so we will keep the calculations simple and not take runner runner considerations into account. Your hand: 5h4h Analysis: It seems that you are getting a good deal here, but there is a problem. Take a look at what happens on the turn: Your hand: 5h4h Analysis: You can't call! The call is usally a smaller precentage of the pot on the turn than on the flop and this makes continuing a draw worthwhile in most cases even though the odds of hitting are slimmer on the turn with only one card to come. However, in this heads up scenario, the pot percentage has remained the same because the pot was so puny to begin with and the bet has just doubled, while your chance of hitting the flush with one card to come has been prohibtively reduced. Mathematically, it is incorrect to call now. Now lets go back to the flop. Since you will not be correct to play beyond the turn if you don't hit the flush on the turn, your chance of winning is not 35% (which is based on two cards to come) but 20% (9/45). 50 out of 200 is 25% which is too high a percentage compared to your chance of turning a winning hand and so you are forced to fold right on the flop. Isn't this horrible? You've been waiting for this flush draw for so long and now that you've got it you can't play it because you're reading your opponent for top pair and you must make your hand in order to win but the pot isn't offering you sufficient odds for your draw. This example illustrates how important it is to have a big pot when you are playing a draw hand. If you are playing short-handed or heads up, forget about draw hands! They are usually a liability and are sometimes not even playable. Case 2: You are playing 54 of hearts vs AK offsuit four-way in a 50-100 limit Holdem game. There was no raise preflop, so there is $200 in the pot. The flop gives your opponent top pair and gives you the flush draw. You check, your opponent bets out with an unbluffable top pair and everyone folds to you, what should you do? You can marginally call here! Your hand: 5h4h Analysis: Pot odds are very favorable here, so it's an easy call. Let's see what happens on the turn, though: Your hand: 5h4h Analysis: The pot odds are just enough to make a call optional here. You are not making any money by calling and you are not losing any money either. If you will call on the turn 100 times, you will win 20 times for an $8,000 profit (20x$400) and you will lose 80 times for an $8,000 loss (80x$100). And so theoretically this is the break-even point: you are not profiting from calling here and you are not losing. In reality, you must plan on calling the turn because if you don't then you are cutting down your win percentage on the flop, as explained earlier. Therefore, unless there is a situation where a call on the turn becomes incorrect (as in case 1), we will consider the flop and turn bet together as if both bets were placed on the flop, since you are planning to always call the turn as well as the flop: Your hand: 5h4h Analysis: This is favorable odds. You are indeed profiting from your post-flop investment. There is a catch, however. Upon further examination, you will realize that you are making a profit from the call on the flop, you are breaking even from the call on the turn but you are losing money overall. How is that? Simple! Let's replay this hand 100 times and do the math: AK's investment
in the pot: 100 x $200 = 20,000 AK wins 65
times: 65 x $500 = $32,500 AK net result:
$12,500 profit So we see that after the flop the 54h is in a situation where if you fold you will lose $5,000 and if you play you will only lose $2,500 but if you would not have played at all (assuming that you are not in the blind) then you would not have lost anything! When we say that it's profitable for the 54h to continue after the flop, we are saying just that: by folding after flopping the flush draw you will lose more money than by playing it out and it's therefore correct to play it out. What we are not saying is that this hand is profitable overall, it is not! This means that even if you knew that you would flop a flush draw (and flush draw only - no pair and no straight draw) it is incorrect for you to enter the pot in the scenario just described because in the long run it costs you more money to play the hand out than to not play it at all. At this point you will ask: is it ever profitable to enter the pot with suited cards if you knew that you would flop a flush draw and a flush draw only? And the answer is, yes! What you need is more players either before the flop or after the flop or both who are increasing the size of the pot but are not cutting down your chances of hitting the flush and winning. Essentially these players are financing your draw. They are hurting the AK (or whichever is hand is favored to win) in their attempt to beat the top pair but they are helping you by building a pot in the event that you complete your draw. The AK wants them out but you want them in and so we say that they are "financing your draw"; they enable you to show a profit for your flush draw in the long run, even though you won't get there most of the time. Case 3: You are playing 54 of hearts vs AK offsuit four-way in a 50-100 limit Holdem game. There was no raise preflop, so there is $200 in the pot. The flop gives you a flush draw and everyone else likes it as well and intends to call until the river making this an $800 pot. You now have good pot odds and a profitable hand! Let's do the math: AK's investment
in the pot: 100 x $200 = 20,000 AK wins 45
times: 45 x $800 = $36,000 Note that this is in theory only. In reality, with two more players up against you, you need to be concerned with runner runner bigger flush and runner runner full house and this cuts down your 35% percentage chance of winning. Still, even if we adjust your percentage chance to 30%, you will still show a net profit on your hand. As long as your opponents' average chance of winning is not greater than yours, you will show a profit or at least break even. |