to infinity...and beyond! (flush draw w/3)

Stupid or brilliant? A flush draw with 2 other callers on both streets can bet INFINITY DOLL-HAIRS and still get proper pot-odds across both turn and river bets. Catch: it requires both other players stay in but that's not too rare.

Why? Against two other people the BEST return you could ever get is 33%. A river+turn flush draw gets better odds than that.

Ex:

• PF: You have suited hole cards and any measly pre-flop pot.
• FLOP: You flop the NUT flush draw!
• RIVER BET: Two people go in and you call a reasonable bet. (say half-pot)
• RIVER CARD: You miss.
• TURN BET: Two people go in again for a $100 BAZILLION DOLLARS. You call. You have the odds!

Return = $100BAZILLION / $300BAZILLION = 33%
Flush draw odds over two cards: = 34.97%

Over time that's a no lose situation right!? In fact if you knew both players would stay in then the RIVER bet holds NO LIMIT as well. Other situations exist too especially with more outs.

(But it wasn't in my poker books )

-Ben

You seem to have neglected the fact that hitting the flush, even the nut flush, does not guarantee winning the hand. A set or trips can fill up or make quads, and the nut flush can also lose to a straight flush.

You could say that about any pot-odds decision. Of course other hands could beat you but that doesn't change the odds situation.

I'm just wondering how donkish this strategy would play out.

Say it's the Turn and you are pretty sure your flush would beat the other two players who might hold a straight or a set or even two pair. They are both betting so they must have something they are proud of. If both other players were in for 2x or 3x the pot that would seem like quite a mistake to call. But actually based on my two-card draw logic above the call is within the odds.

Have you ever folded your flush draw to a big RIVER bet and then your card shows up and you would've won? (should'a could'a would'a!)

But the FAQS are what happened if you missed, you would be done...

Look at your odds, to hit that str8, or flush, how many hands you have odds to hit well holding AsKs, the flop comes Ad Jh Js!!! anyone holding AJ has you nailed, do you like your odds on that ? And he checks the hand, you check the hand, to have the turn to be 9s, your odds of winning are so low you have to fold the hand, if you bet it your done....

Do not chase every draw you see, you will get killed on it.

Str8 draw missed, but you did not have the odds to call, even PREFLOP.
Donkey play that will kill you, when being trapped, by ones who know your a draw chaser.

Good points yet I'm not saying chase every draw. I still think this strategy holds merit: Occasionally, when I've got the NFD and two other dudes are battling it out (likely with sets, straights, or pair(s) and NO PAIR on the board) then I plan to make the big surprising TURN call. The odds-gods say I should expect to hit about one out three times. So I'll miss twice and kiss my money goodbye, but my one win should get me back even plus potentially pay off big depending on what I can coax out of either of the other shmoes on the showdown bet. They probably don't think I'm on a flush draw because who would be stupid enough to pay that much to see one card!
Finally, in the rare case that the last card paired the board *and* gave me my flush then I'd be in a pickle. Who has the full house? The first player to bet big probably wins. I don't want to calculate the chances of that happening but someone else can.

I don't completely understand what you're saying but note that the probability you fill your flush on the river after you brick the turn is 20% (not 33%). I also don't understand your logic on the river because on the river, you either have the best hand remaining or you don't.

The thing with draws is that they are more powerful with more people in the pot but the larger bet, the fewer people that will stay in the pot.

You do seem to be onto the jam nut draws concept but the power of this lies in having numerous outs and having fold equity. By having outs other than the flush draw, presumably an overcard (the A), and possibly a gutshot, you have numerous ways to win the hand giving you good equity meaning you can overshove and still win a large portion of the time even if called.

I am approaching this as a two-card flush draw that should hit ~33% (or 34.97% for the geeks). Yes, I bricked the Turn, and the River on its own only hits ~20%, but my two bets added together still only require 2:1 return to break even over three hands. (Assuming when I hit, I actually take the pot).

I meant to say: I plan to make the big surprising RIVER call that no one would take for a single card flush draw, and hopefully when the third suit falls on the board it doesn't scare my opponents much and they give away their money with measly sets and straights. (That another prob I've had with flushes against my sober'er players is they look so obvious I can't seem to get paid off).

I get more confused every time you post Maybe giving an example through a hand would be a good idea.

Is a two card flush draw a flush draw where you have two of a suit and there is two of that suit on the board? In that case, you refer to making a river call with a single card flush draw when the "third suit falls" (I'm going to assume this means the third card of the suit) which doesn't make sense.

Also, if you make the nuts when your flush fills, why are you calling instead of raising/shoving?

This is the concept of implied odds (how much you get paid after your draw fills) which is an extremely important component because the odds you get to draw are generally not enough from calling bets alone and you leave it out entirely in your analysis.

Alright my lingo is confusing you. (By two-card draw I mean Turn card + River card). Ex:

I've got suited hole cards w/ Ace and whatever.
Flop has 2 of my suit on the board, no pairs.
Two other players are in.
Turn bet is reasonable, I call but the Turn card misses my flush.
River bet: BOTH other players bet big. 2x or 3x pot. What to do?

Typically I'd fold the nut-flush draw here. But based on above 3 player analysis I call the big pre-River card bet! If I miss twice (and lose my dough), and hit once then I break even (regardless of any extra showdown bets). If my big RIVER bet fools my pals then my implied odds go way up and make this call even more attractive.

Making any more sense?

p.s I normally try to play draws within break-even pot-odds and expect the implied winnings are my profit. Rather then calling bets on supposed implied winnings that don't always come true.

I think I understand your rationale and hopefully this response answers what you're trying to get at. You're saying that if you win double your money in one hand and brick the other two, you'll be break even and this applies in flush draws because you'll hit 1/3 times.

I respond to this by going back to the, you have 33% equity on the flop but only 20% on the turn. Thus, your logic applies on the flop but not the turn. Imagine that the following hand occurs three times (albeit a little skewed but to prove a point):


Hero(SB): $25
Villain2(BB): $25
Villain1(BTN): $25

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with 7 A
5 folds, Villain 1 raises to $0.75, Hero calls $0.75, Villain 2 calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.25) 3 2 Q (3 players)
Hero checks, Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 Checks

Turn: ($2.25) 5 (3 players)
Hero checks, Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 bets $5, Hero calls, Villain 2 calls

River: ($17.25) ?

Let's assume river is unknown for our 3 trials. We flopped the flush draw on the flop but money didn't go in until the turn. This is an unprofitable call on the turn. Why? Because when our money goes in on the turn meaning our draw only fills once every 5 times. Once the turn card falls, the 1 out of 3 times situation no longer exists. Thus, even though we expect to fill a flush 1 out of 3 times on the flop, that only makes money going in the pot on the flop have a 2:1 expectation not the turn. On the turn, we break even on this call (excluding implied odds), by getting a 4:1 expectation meaning we would need 4 other callers to be able to put in infinite money and break even.

I would really try to think of the odds you are getting on draws as the equity you have when the money goes in. Thus, you are getting immediate odds to call when you have 33% equity and you are getting 2:1 to call or you have 25% equity and you are getting 3:1 to call or w/e.

As for the river situation (which takes implied odds into the equation, and if I understand correctly, is totally different from your original point), this is entirely dependent on game flow, opponent tendencies, etc. Let's go back to our example and assume the 5 of spades falls on the river. How often do you think people are going to bet big on the river when the spade falls if they can't beat a flush? Not too often. A lot of people think: "uh oh, theres the third spade someone just filled their draw." Thus, we would have to bet out and call/fold depending on what happens and/or reads.

That's a good sum-up but I still say your example is break-even over three hands.

Nope: You probably meant "expect to fill the flush by either the Turn or the River card, 1 out of 3 times."

Nope entirely: The 1 out of 3 times situation ONLY exists over the two cards (Turn card + River card). It doesn't matter whether you hit the card on the Turn or the River. It doesn't matter if you miss the Turn card. The 33% equity only applies if you think in two-card chunks. It also doesn't matter when the money goes in. If zero, or a few tons of chips went in to see the Turn card, and if zero or a few more tons of chips went in to see the River card, it doesn't matter. The fact remains: IF 3 players stayed in to see both cards then you're back to 2:1 return. Even steven!

(caveat: your one flush hit has to win the pot)

This is just mathematically incorrect. If you just the river card to come and have 20% equity, that means you expect to win it 1 out of 5 times, not 1 out of 3. I'm really not sure how else I can explain it... I'm not sure how much background you have in mathematics but I would really recommend you start thinking in terms of expected value rather than run strategy models like this. Strategy models like this require decision trees and the use of conditional probabilities.

... I'm hoping you're not trying to be a huge grammar nit because my sentence is clear as day in the context of the paragraph and is actually not grammatically incorrect... Obviously if we flop a flush draw, we are not flopping the flush. Just in case you really didn't understand what I was saying:

"Thus, even though we expect to fill a flush 1 out of 3 times (by the river) on the flop (we are looking at the hand from the flop meaning we have our two hole cards and we see the flop but not the turn or river)"

This is where your thinking is flawed. It doesn't matter whether or not your flush fills on the turn or river from the perspective of the flop. However, this is only relevant for money going in on the flop. However, once the turn card falls, it does matter whether you just hit the flush or not. Let's see if I can explain conditional probability without making things too complicated...

The hand is preflop and you have two suited cards (let's say the A of spades and the 5 of spades). The probability of having a flush by the river is a little less than 4%. Does this mean that we should expect our flush to fill 4% of the time after we flop two spades? No, because the board changed and that changes our probability of hitting the flush. Because we had a 4% chance to hit a flush by the river preflop, does it mean we need 24:1 odds on the flop when we flop the flush draw? No, because the board changed. If we were playing purely for flush odds, we would need 24:1 odds on our money preflop.

In the same way, once we flop our flush draw on the flop, we have a 35% chance of hitting the flush by the river. Does this mean we will hit the flush 35% of the time once we brick the turn? No, because the turn coming changes our probability of hitting the flush. Thus, because we had a 35% chance to hit a flush on the flop, does this still mean we need 2:1 odds on the turn after we brick the turn? No, because the board changed and the probability of hitting the flush changed.

If this doesn't give you a better understanding (and I apologize if my explanations are unclear because I suck at explaining), I'll just let someone else give it a whirl because I don't know how else to explain it though if you have any specific questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.

as in most cases there are alot more variables that have to be put in place to make this happen....if i was drawing to 100 percent then ok but the odds diminish greatly if one person has a set and the other person has a str8 with the suited cards that u need

I now concede the idiocy of this plan. (I did ace engineering probability but that was many beers ago.) I would have to win the Turn and River bets from *both* players *every time* I attempted the flush draw, and that just ain't going to happen!

I should've just thought of it in terms of EV:

* 20% of the time I hit the flush card on the Turn.
* 16% of the time I hit the flush card on the River.
* 64% of the time I don't hit squat.

Likely the times I hit on the Turn I won't win much more. So the 16% of hands that hit on the River I'd have to collect a huge payout to even out all the losses. And like everyone keeps reminding me, the flush ain't locked anyway because at least 2 of the flush outs will always present a scare card (because they can pair up with the board).

All in all this is DONK. Thanks for putting up with me.

I'm not quite sure that I understand your logic here but if you realized something that you didn't know before, all the more power to you

I'll take the bait and try to explain.

I should hit the Turn card ~20% of the time. When I don't, I should hit the River ~20% of the remaining 80% of hands (or 16%). The real numbers are 19.1%, 15.4%, and 65.4% but who's counting. Now work through some EV examples to see where things fall apart. Say I am playing against two players with my flush draw:

Pot = $100
Bet to see Turn card = $50 (half-pot)
Bet to see River card = $250 (full-pot)

If two generous players ALWAYS give me two bets whenever I hit my flush on either street, then that gives:

EV: .20*600 + .16*600 - .64*300 = 24

That's a winning formula but a pipe dream. Assume worst case where anytime I hit the Turn card it causes both players to fold. That gives:

EV: .20*100 + .16*600 - .64*300 = -76

A losing proposition. Actually no bet amounts exist that make a profit if both other players fold on the Turn.

But... if I bank on implied odds, then how much would I need to rake in on the 16% of hands that I paid big for my sneaky flush draw?

Answer: $475 extra on the showdown will break even:

EV: .20*100 + .16*(600+475) - .64*300 = 0

Maybe not so outlandish!

In this case, about 2x the pot in implied showdown winnings makes this a break-even strategy. I'm never sober enough to grasp all this at the casinos anyway but it was interesting.