Poker Forum by Poker is Rigged

This article is a introduction on how to play your draws. This article only addresses current value and not more advance theories such as implied odds or fold equity.

So first off what is a draw?
- A draw is a hand which is currently most likely to be ranked behind the hand our your opponent
- has a certain number of cards that will improve it to a better hand
- if these cards hit it will usually rank our hand above our opponents hand

I am going to address a few draws:
A flush draw
this is two suited cards which has its complementary two suited cards on the flop - meaning you have to hit another one of the same suit on the turn or river to hit your hand.

A straight draw
this is very similar this is when you have 2 cards in your hand and two cards on the flop which are all connected. For instance your cards 56 and the flop comes 78K, your straight draw would be 5678. So you have to hit a 9 or a 4 to complete this draw.


A combination draw
This is when you have a straight and a flush draw . This is your strongest draw!


When playing draws we must remember that we currently do not have the best hand which means we need to improve our hand with a favourable card on the turn or the river. It is very important that we understand how many cards left in the deck will improve our hand and this will help us to determine whether or not we can profitably continue with our draw.

For this to happen we have to take into account our outs, our pot odds, and our drawing odds!

So lets first address outs.
What is a out? a out are the cards which are available for you to hit on the turn or river to complete your hand. The more outs you have the stronger your hand is and the more profitable it will be. Outs must be calculated with respect to your pot odds.

Outs you should remember!
A flush draw has 9 outs
A straight draw has 8 outs
Two over cards has 6 outs
One over card has 3 outs
A combination draw has 15 outs


In a deck of cards there are 4 of each number and 13 of each suit remembering this you should be able calculate your outs quickly!


Now let’s talk about odds!
Your odds help you determine whether or not you can continue to chase your draw in a profitable fashion
you use your outs to calculate your odds!

There are two main types of odds you should be aware of:
- The odds being offered by the pot i.e. 'pot odds'
- The odds against you hitting one of your outs i.e. 'drawing odds'
Used together you can work out whether or not you should continue the hand

If we look at pot odds:
To calculate the pot odds you must take the total size of the pot as it stands then divide that by the amount it costs you to call giving you a ratio.
So if the pot is 10$ and it costs you 5$ to call you pot odds are 10:5 or simplified 2:1.

Remember that when counting the pot you need to calculate all bets in that round including you own! So if you get re raised when you calculate your pot odds you must take in to account your initial raise.

Your drawing odds:

These are the odds against you making your hand or draw. To calculate these i use a cheat sheet:






What this shows you is how likely you are to hit your given number of outs by the turn or by the river. So looking at that table if you say have a flush draw (9 outs) you are 4.22 to one to hit on the turn but 2.18 to 1 to hit on the turn or river.

Common drawing odds: flush draw is 4 to 1 against hitting it on the turn
straight draw is 4.7 to 1 against hitting it on the turn
two over cards is 6.7 to 1 against hitting it on the turn
one over card is 14:1 against hitting it on the turn.

When you combined pot odds and drawing odds together you can work out whether or not its profitable to call that bet!
You basically want your pot odds to be larger than your drawing odds!

For instance if you have a flush draw on the flop
the main pot is 6$ and your opponent bets 1$ so the total size of the pot is 7$ and you have to call one giving you pot odds of 7:1 now we know that the drawing odds of hitting a flush are 4:1 so because the pot odds are larger than the drawing odds it makes it profitable to call this one dollar bet!


You can apply this in most simple poker drawing situations and even though this is a very simplified way of calculating your odds and playing your draws if you stick to this you will always gain money on your draws overall!

I think if a player doesnt know this aspect of poker, they should give up fairly sharpish.

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I know, I think this article is heavily aimed at the newer player. I'm sure we all know our odds and things

Although that graph is pretty useful, I might bookmark this and come back to it.

alright well this is a bit of a crash course in odds - but it essentially is 2.5% per out on the turn and 1.25% (or 1.3) on the river.

so lets do a practice hand:

Your opponent raises big preflop.


You have and call.


Flop comes .


Your opponent goes all in first to act.


Whats your percentage to win?





well you can assume he has a pair in a siuation like this (10 10, J J, Q Q, etc.)
so your ACE gives you 3 outs right there.

You have 4 outs for the straight draw, one of which is a spade.

Now there are 13 of each suit in a deck - 4 of them are visible now - plus 1 you are counting as a straight out; so thats 8 outs remaining.

8 + 4 + 3 = 15 outs

15 x 2.5% = roughly 35% to win

lets say the turn is a .

you still have the amount of outs, but your odds are about half as much:

15 x 1.25% = roughly 18% to win




and in case you all dont know, this is where "pot odds" come into play.


lets say your opponent in this hand up top has , and $60 in chips. He is UTG and makes it $20 to go in a $1-$2 game.
There is one other caller besides you - so by the time the flop comes there is around $60 in the pot (minus rake)

He then goes all in first to act with his remaining $40. The second player folds and you have this 15 out draw.

Well we figured out you are drawing at roughly 1 to 3 or 35%, meaning you should be paying NO MORE than 35% of the pot to make it a "good call".

What is 35% of $100?...........$35.00

In this case you would be paying $40 to win a potential $100, so you are getting CLOSE to the odds to call, but not technically...



anyway i figure most of you already know what this all is, but i thought i would post it in case one of you doesnt.

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Good explaination Rockart. I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with pot odds but for the ocasional new player that does browse by; well he might learn something.

Let's do a more realistic example:

You have AK and your opponent has A3.

the flop comes A 9 8 RAINBOW

What are the chances that your AK will hold up after your opponent shoves all in on the flop?

Answer:
In casino, it's about 10%

Online, it's ... well, whatever it is ....ROFL

lol online its whoever goes all in first. kickers are meaningless

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sure these percentages are right? i always rted flush draw higher. your 54% on flop?
34% on turn?

Yeah, it's 54.45% on the flop and 34% on the turn with straight flush draw v OP. Not sure how these are calculated.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_p...f_drawing_outs

This link is good, see "Estimating probability of drawing outs".

The rudimentary way for calculating this would be just counting up your outs(in this case 9 flush outs, 3 straight outs(one linked with flush otherwise 4), 3 ace outs) 9+3+3.. 15. For one street you take x2 for two streets you take x4. Therefore this gives us 60% to win(actually equity is about 55.5 vs QQ here) on two streets. This is pretty close and generally good enough for most situations.("This approximation gives roughly accurate probabilities up to about 12 outs after the flop, with an absolute average error of 0.9%, a maximum absolute error of 3%")

Normally, I think most draws you're not going to be calculating this up and comparing it to pot odds if you're playing good solid poker. So the two main questions are usually "do i have justified implied odds to make this call?" or "is this a profitable spot to semibluff all in with this draw?". Most players even good ones don't know the exact probabilities. There are other situations but I think they're a bit more tricky and go well beyond the confines of this discussion.