How To Play A Flush Draw
To play a flush draw, any flush draw, you must always know what else is going on at the table. You need to know who you are playing against, your position at the table, pot amount, the value of the blinds, the chip-stacks of the other players, etc. All of these factors will influence how you should play a hand. Be more inclined to bet when your non-made hand has a backdoor flush draw. An exciting part of playing poker is to encounter a flush draw. The flush in poker is a five-card poker hand consisting of cards from the same suit. This is a highly sought-after hand ranking as it sits at the fifth position on the poker hand rankings table, making it a formidable hand to win with. Therefore, seeing this on the table instantly puts the player on an advantage provided he knows how to take it from there. Flush draw hands on the flop. Leading out or making a raise is going to be the strategy that sees the most long term success with flopped flush draws in limped pots. You’ll be putting the pressure on your opponents and they won’t be as likely to put you on a draw, with the reason being that most people play these types of hands very passively.
Tricky Poker Hands - How to Play a Flush Draw Correctly?
Alec Torelli is a poker professional originally from California, but travels the world full time with his wife, Ambra. Torelli has over $1.5 million in live tournament earnings (including two World Series of Poker final tables and two World Poker Tour final tables) as well as over $500,000 in online tournament earnings. Outside of poker he and his wife manage a million-dollar online business which travels the world with them.
In Torelli’s “Hand of the Day” series he analyzes hands played by him and submitted to him by others. Today he considers one of the more tricky poker hands to play sent by reader playing in a deep-stacked, turbo event who flops a huge draw against multiple opponents.
Flush draws are tricky hands to play.
Math says to play them conservatively, as your chances of winning versus a made hand are roughly 35%. Strategy says to play them aggressively and push strong, since by raising, you give yourself two chances to win the pot — that is, if your opponents fold or if you draw out on them.
In today’s “Hand of the Day” I take a very specific situation and point out some of the variables you need to consider when deciding how to play a flush draw.
Take a look at the discussion, and then afterwards I’ll discuss proper strategy in more detail below, including raising some questions you should be ready to consider whenever faced with the problem of how to approach flush draws.
I don’t want to overgeneralize the point I made in the video and claim that you should always flat-call with a flush draw. In fact, there are many times when being aggressive in such spots is absolutely warranted.
Here are those questions you should ponder when debating whether to raise or call on a flush draw:
- Is your opponent likely to have a weak hand?
- Can you successfully represent?
- Do you have a lot of fold equity? (In other words is there a high probability that your opponent folds if you raise?)
- Could I win the pot with less risk by just calling?
If you answered “yes” to the first three questions and said “no” to the fourth, then chances are it’s a great time to play your draw aggressively. The more of these factors you have in your favor, the more beneficial it is to push with your draw.
Oh, and one more thing. When you do shove, be sure to hit!
See you next week.
~Alec
Want to be featured on future episodes of “Hand of the Day”? Simply submit your hands to Alec here.
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Nut Flush Draw
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How To Play Against Flush Draw
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Alec Torelli