Getting out While the Gettin's Good

Every year in America ’s cardrooms thousands upon thousands of hard earned dollars are wasted by player’s who insist upon continuing on with hands that have essentially missed the flop. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the flop doesn’t always have to hit you with a two-by-four in order for you to play on. In fact, there are plenty of times when you’ll rightfully see the turn with a long shot draw, if only because the size of the pot warrants such a play. But, as you’ll soon see, these spots tend to be the exception.

Most expert limit poker players all have quirks and idiosyncrasies in their playing styles. Some may play marginal hands ‘fast’, for example, while some others may only play on when they enjoy a huge overlay. I’ve met a fair number of long term winners, and I can say that good poker players are somewhat like snowflakes; i.e., no two are ever the same. But if there’s one common trait that all solid players share, it is this: they all understand the value of not getting involved with bad hands on the flop when the pot is small and being contested multi-way. There are almost no exceptions to this. Most of the pots you’ll be playing will be smaller than 8 small bets before the flop action commences, and most of the time you’ll catch little or nothing on the flop. It follows, therefore, that any player worth his salt must know when to get away from a hand after the flop drops.

In poker, the most important decisions are those that you’re confronted with most frequently. Take as an example your play before the flop. Most good players would agree that pre-flop play is one of the easiest aspects of the game to master. However, the relative simplicity of pre-flop play belies the fact that this is probably the most important part of the game to play well. This is because you’re faced with pre-flop decisions on every hand, so there are more opportunities to make mistakes here than on any other street. This same logic applies to the flop, albeit to a slightly lesser extent. In the course of a session you’ll have to make more flop decisions than you will turn or river decisions, since you’ll see more flops than you will turns or rivers. Furthermore, flop mistakes have a nasty way of compounding themselves; you make a marginal call on the flop, for example, and catch a turn card that helps you slightly, and before you know it you’re spending an extra three bets to get to the river. Needless to say, this type of situation can become very costly indeed; especially when it happens repeatedly.

Since the most common flop mistakes that beginners make usually involve calling when they should fold, we’ll devote this essay to dissecting those situations where a novice might be tempted to call, but an expert player would not. True, there is much, much more to solid flop play than simply knowing when to ‘get away’ from a hand. But learning when to fold is a great place to start.

FLOPPING THE UNDERPAIR

An underpair is a wired pair in the hole that’s smaller than the highest card on the board. If you have pocket 8s, and the flop comes 943, or KT2, or A76, you hold what is called an underpair.

An underpair is not a good hand; in fact, it’s a very bad hand which needs to be folded immediately if there’s any action to you. This is as true for pocket 3’s on a T96, and it’s true for pocket K’s on an AT7 flop. In neither case do you have much of a hand. Further, you have very little chance of improving, since there are only two cards in the deck (the two that match the rank of your pair) that will help you without also helping your opponent.

 Are there times when you can play an underpair? Well, yes- there are. If you have pocket 7’s, for example, and the flop comes off Ts 5h 5c, you might want to bet if everyone has checked to you and the pot is being contested by 5 or fewer players. But, if anyone has bet before you act you must fold, since the chances they have you beaten are too great, and your chances of improving to the best hand are too small.

 Many players have no problem folding small pocket underpairs when they don’t improve on the flop, but for some reason cannot summon the willpower to fold big pocket pairs. Give them KK and they’re headed to the river, action be damned, even if the flop brings an ace. I have no explanation for this. Perhaps the enormity of their starting hand has excited them, and they can’t bring themselves to believe they are beaten. In any case, you can rest assured that anytime there’s a bet (or a bet and a raise) to you, and you hold an underpair, the correct play is almost always to fold.

MIDDLE OR BOTTOM PAIR WITH NOTHING ELSE WORKING

When you hold Ac Ts, and the flop comes Ks Th 6c, you have flopped middle pair. When you hold Kh 2h and the flop comes Ts 3c 2c, you have flopped bottom pair.

Intermediate players often become enamored of drawing to these hands, hoping to hit either two pair or trips on the turn, because they think their implied odds are so good. The thinking goes like this: ‘I have about a 1 in 9 chance of improving on the turn, which means I need to be getting a little over 8:1 odds from the pot. There are currently five bets in the pot. If I call, and improve, I can collect two big bets on the turn from the original bettor, and one bet on the river, which means I’ll be collecting 14 small bets for the one I invested. This is substantially better than the 8:1 I need, so I think I’ll call’.

This thinking isn’t bad, so far as it goes, but it does fail to take everything into consideration. First, if the board is two-suited you could improve your hand and run into a flush at the same time (if the card that helps you also fills a flush for an opponent). If this happens, things are going to get expensive. Second, there is no guarantee that your opponent didn’t flop two pair himself, or three of a kind, in which case improving your hand may simply give you a second-best hand that you can’t get away from. Thirdly, if your ‘relative’ position is early, you could call and face a raise behind you, thereby forcing you to put two bets (or more) in the pot to see the turn.

There are times when drawing to these hands is a good idea. This occurs when you have ‘something else’ working for you, such as when you have a backdoor flush draw or your kicker is an overcard to the board. Also, when the pot is huge you’ll often have to call here since the reward for hitting your long shot draw is so high. But in an average sized pot, calling with these hands when you nothing else going for you is a money-burner.

DRAWING TO NON-NUT GUTSHOTS

Another huge error. If you have 7c 6c, and the flop comes QT8, you don’t want to be drawing, since any 9 will give a bigger straight to a player holding a jack. Similar considerations apply to instances where you hold something like Ac 7c, and the flop comes Ts 9s 6h; although this isn’t as poor of a draw as the previous example, note that you’ll be splitting the pot with anyone else who holds a seven if you hit, and a card like the 8s could put you in a thorny predicament.

Drawing to gutshots is often correct; in fact, if the board is a ‘rainbow’ (meaning there are three different suits on the flop), and you’re drawing to the nut straight, you can often draw to your straight when getting as little as 7:1 from the pot. Even though you’re about 11:1 against hitting the straight, you can take slightly the worst of it here because you know you’ll have the best hand if you hit. This counts for a lot. But you cannot take slightly the worst of it if you’re drawing to a hand that has a reasonable chance of being second best when it hits, or if the chances are fair that you’ll be splitting the pot with another player if your draw comes in.

As with the second pair and bottom pair scenario, there are times when you can draw to a non-nut gutshot if your hand has something else going for it. If you had that same Ac 7c, for example, and the flop came Ts 9c 6h, you will have the nut flush if two clubs show up on the turn and river. Also, hitting the eight here won’t give anyone else a flush, and spiking an ace might put you in the lead as well. But before you make these kinds of draws you want to be reasonably sure that your ‘outs’ won’t give you a costly second best hand.

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