Chasing the flush

What are you guys thoughts on doing this? I always go for it if the bets ahead of me are reasonable, the board doesn't pair, I have a high flush draw, etc. Does this make me a donkey lol? I think if the price is right, go for it.

We've been having a discussion of chasing in general at

When is it ok to chase?
Most of it should apply to flush draws.

The key is pot odds & implied odds. Large pots means you should call more, large bets means you should fold more.

In hold'em any 2-card flush usually wins; just beware with less than a jack high. Full houses are rare but you can tell a lot of the time when somebody makes one.

if you are four flushed and the board isnt paired then id say raising with it is a solid option. ur oppenent wont put u on it and if u hit it could pay off nicely.

Only chase a draw if you can win a HUGE pot.

Under most circumstances, I would not chase a draw.

If severely outmatched, it might be worth it too. Use luck to your advantage when necessary.

If hit a pair and have an A or K flush draw I have been pushing all in especially late in tournements. Let's Say I have A9d and the board hits two more d's and a 9. I am almost gonna push.

I'm not sure a push is entirely necessary. I feel like in most situations, you can accomplish the same thing while putting fewer chips at risk.

If I have the nut flush draw it will depnd on my stack but yes I do agree with you. If I have only the drawo there is no way I am going all in. If I also hit a pair I might.

I guess you would say I am the flush king. If I have a ace or king with a same siut card and there are two on the flop I'm going hunting the flush. A large majority I hit the flush. In a game I played today, I got to the money by the flush two times. And a couple a times when four of a siut is on the felt and I have the top kicker. I love the flush. It beats straits and sets.
in my oppinion, only donks call winners that. I've seen pro's win with 2" and 3" . and when low cards win over top pair. are they donks?
If you have the best cards, play them. don't worry about chatroom banter.

If you really hit the flush the "large majority" of the time, get me a call so I can put in your buyin to the WSOP. The chance of hitting the flush is only 40%.

Now getting back to the original discussion, this is relatively good odds. It means you only need to have 1.5:1 pot odds to call correctly.

If you also have a pair, I would recommend betting 4xBB. Don't push because if you push you have created the worst pot odds possible for yourself, and if someone calls you they will have your pair beat (unless they are donks themselves).

On the other hand, if you bet 4xBB, you often will keep the low flush draws in because they will think they have pot odds. You may also see bottom pair or middle pair calling because they think you only have a flush draw. Put simply, you have nothing to gain from pushing with your flush draw & pair.

i usually chase after them when in good position or outchip the other players in the hand. often times i use a reraise to better disguise what i am up to.

if your chasing a flush you only win 33% of the time after the flop. and if your still chasing on the river you win like 15% of the time. so if you can see the turn and river cheap i tkink its ok. plus most of the time your hand is face up, and only a donky is going to pay you off, so you need a good read on the player to. in the long run 33% and 15% is not profitable poker.
that said what you want is a good combo draw with suited connectors. 56s, 67s type hands, that will make a str8 as well as a flush. and you have a 51% chance after the flop if it hits right for you. people over value flush cards way to much. thats why they are losing players.

I've learned from experience that flush draws rarely hit...no matter what others say, it is simply the truth. Dont chase with one because it is nothing. If you hit, congrats but now everyone knows what u hav and u have officially sucked out. And if not, You have a high card. Its a lose lose situation.

That's crap. It's not sucking out at all if you have proper pot odds. It's all about expected value. And you WILL hit a flush around 35% of the time if you chase it on the flop, 20% on the turn. And everyone may know what you have, but if you had pot odds who cares because you made a +EV play that you should have made.

It is by no means a lose lose situation.

with pot odds yes. but like i said, alot of players over value suited cards to the point of calling bets preflop with crap like Q2, J6 and the like. which is not plus EV. then they suckout and think they made a good play. i see this in tournys more than cash games. i think because players are there to gamble more than play poker. which is fine with me if they are chasing preflop with a .88 chance to make a flush on the flop.

I have flushy days, and then might go a week without a flush in sight.

It is usually a situation where the odds tell you what should be done. today I limped the sb into a family pot with 10-5 sooted. I never play play 10-5 but the flush flopped after I limped getting 15-1 odds to do so. I wasn't about to let anybody chase a forth suit, so I bet out, first to act, and took that pot down.

Unless you are a cardrack, you have to play connectors, and chase hands to some degree.

with no raise in front of you. hell yeah you can complete 10-5s in the small blind. i see nothing wrong with this. but just play the hand for what it is, 10-5s. always great to take a pot down with a hand like that.

I was playing a freeroll earlier today and got chewed out by a guy for chasing a flush. I had 2 suited cards and 2 more came on the flop. I also had the ace. On the flop, there was only king high. He ended up having a pair of kings with a weak kicker and thought I was a donk for chasing the flush. With outs that included a flush and an ace I don't think it was a donk call at all consider he only min raised it as well...what is there to scare me?

When chasing a flush either go after one if u got a gut feeling your going to hit it. Or if it cost less then 10% of ur roll late. Or use it as all in bluff to try to knock every1 else off the hand and jack the pot.

Thanks, I'll remember to use this next time I have a gut feeling, especially if my pot odds are horrible to call.

I am a sucker for chasing the flush. I have won some big pots. I have also loss my ass. I usully do it when I am short stacked and the pot is big. I thought the odds were bigger than 35%. Maybe I should rethink my options.

ill chase a big fl draw if its cheap but i reckon it has cost me more than its won me over time

A caveat here... this implies that the others have a clue about pot odds rather than figuring the flush will always hit. Playing higher buy-ins this might work. Playing freerolls and micro-buy-ins, it's very possible that anybody with 4 to the flush (even if they have 2-3 in the hole) will push against your raise -- and then the question is, do you fold or call? You're ahead of the clueless crowd, but have to be cautious if your top card is 10 or lower.

A rule that I have adopted that has saved me some heartache is to not chase beyond the turn, unless a) it's free or small, or b) the payout is gonna be huge, which in that spot you're probably already committed.

My biggest leak is chasing the flush.
I limped with K4 sooted on the button once and when I hit the nut flush on the flop, UTG freaked cause he had slowed played his Aces and didn't improve to a boat.
I have learnt to finally drop them after the turn if the odds aren't there.

I can't resist a two suit flop when you got two in your hand, i know its about a 50/50 but i always end up drawing for it

In tournaments I chase till the end..But in cash games it's up to the pot and raises..But mostly I chase till the end..

I personllay love a flush draw. Not may fovorite to push with but if I out chip the other person I may push to knock him out or get him to fold. But It all depends on the situation. I may chase to the river or see the turn. If I dont hit the turn I am not as likley to call the river if I have to pay too much to see it. But a flush draw is a good play when the board isnt paired. 33% is a decent chance to gain more chips.

What do you mean by this? You're not saying that a flush draw succeeds over 50% of the time, because I know you know better than that. I think you're saying that if you hold two hearts and make a flush, you usually have the winning hand, whereas if you only have one low heart and there are four on the board, another player often has the higher heart and better flush? Do I understand you correctly?

Not to disparage anyone, but since we have this 50-post target, there's a lot more bad advice being posted, like "never draw to a flush" or "go with your gut." You can learn a lot on CardsChat, but only if you make the effort to discern quality advice from that sot of thing. If you put in the effort, you'll learn what constitutes quality analysis, and you'll start to recognize certain names and that some of the members here are worth listening to. James is high on the list. With the posting frenzy, the quality is a little diluted, but it's still there. It's not a bad thing, really. There are a lot more threads now that are back to the basics - things like how to calculate odds, size bets, figure equity and expected Value.

If you're a newbie, don't be afraid of being wrong. You actually learn a hell of a lot when your dearly held notions are challenged and someone successfully helps you to open your eyes and see things the right way. And there IS a right way. There are many situations in poker where a given move is provably correct or incorrect. You might make the wrong move and still win, or vice versa, but over the long run, such play will cost you.

Lest I sound like a know-it-all, I've probably posted more incorrect theories than anyone. But I sure have gotten an education on here. If you're new to CardsChat, you've stumbled on to a jewel - probably the friendliest and most helpful poker tool on the internet.
Gary the Worden

usually when flop a flush you assume that youve got 9 outs. Well mathematically it scorrect. However, if you reason with yourself it's really wronf of havinh 9 outs. instead of having a percentage of 36% (from the 9 outs) youll really only have about 3-6 outs taking into consideration of your oppoenets cards that have folded preflop in which its a 50 percent chance for each of the players that have folded to have actually folded one of your required outs. so dont alwasy lighten up when you flop a flush draw and do not risk it for the draw if you flop the draw. you see many players often go broke than hit when they risk their draw. Better off just calling pot odds than shovinh it for all .However, their is an exception when your extremely short stacked to under 9 bigblind sor so. If not youll be making a huge mistake which most players would do.

I'm not EXACTLY sure what you're saying here, but I think there is one major error in your approach. I think you're saying that you're reducing your number of outs by counting cards which you think your opponents might have folded?

Your opponents could have folded anything. They are all unknown cards to you and equal in value to all the unknown cards in the deck. You really can't say that instead of 9 outs, you only have 6 because your opponents might have folded 3 of your out cards. That's not poker. That's using a crystal ball.

The only exception to this, and it's a pretty vague one, is that if there are big cards on the flop like A or K, and you're holding a middle pair - you must figure that it's LESS likely that all your opponents folded an ace or a King than folded random small cards; therefore it's MORE likely a surviving opponent has you beat by pairing one of these big board cards. Just common sense.

But you're going down the wrong path if you're basing your outs on speculating that a certain number of hearts are in folded hands or in other live hands. They may well be. But your calculations must only be based on what you know. And you know that there are, for example, nine hearts unaccounted for.

I hope you get this because it hurts my brain to try to explain it further.

I like to chase flush because when you had a high kicker flush you almost feel your unstoppable and you know nothing can beat you so you start strategizing and I like to bet if i have a flush draw from the flop because i get both the turn and river to hit the flush and plus when i bet on the flop most people fold except one so i have less people to think about. Chasing flushes is always fun lol.

Tell me, what are your odds of hitting? If somebody puts you all in, do you want to chase more, of does that take the fun out of it? You'll just chase - no matter how big or small the bet. Would you ever take the initiative and bet instead of call?

I told i like to bet on the flop when i have a flush draw from the flop but usually i won't chase if the money is too much for me. I usually make good decisions to go all in or not to. You have to be good at chasing the flushes like me to understand :P jk.

Yeah, I should have been more clear; you'll usually win when you MAKE your flush and there are only three cards on the board.

Grats on 200 posts by the way.

Heck, I wasn't even aware of the 200. What does that give me? Entry to the exalted level of freerolls?

I have no problem posting a lot. In fact, I have the opposite problem. I guess I tend to run at the mouth. I'm in a mode now where i'm just not playing much - but I'm learning a lot through CardsChat. Kind of consolidating and expanding on my knowledge.

Isn't this thread pitiful? We were all beginners once and there's really no shame in putting out some wrong strategy or something as long as you're ready to learn from your mistakes, but to put such bogus info out there with such conviction is mind-boggling. I get involved because I want to help players get the correct info, but you put it out there and then there's just another string of "go with your gut" or "play it because it feels good."

There ought to be separate sections of CardsChat. One for people who really want to progress in the game and the other for bullshitters.

I'm starting to come to a better realization, though, that the majority of people just don't want to get better. That's good for the rest of us because it should make it easier to win.

This theme is popping up on other threads, too. The law of unforeseen consequences. People want to freeroll and they now have to make fifty posts, so there's a deluge of crap advice. I really wouldn't mind if it lead to some decent discussion, but people just ignore the good stuff and go on lobbing crap back and forth. I guess if you're just trying to reach fifty, no real reason to read, let alone work to understand, what others have written.
G