Folding a draw

Say you had a flush draw after the flop.

You hold 2 suited connectors.

You are certain that if your flush comes in you will have the best hand.

You are also certain that your oppnent has you beat right now (say a pair of kings)

You are getting correct pot odds to call

What, if anything, would cause you to fold in this situation?

If there was someone behind you left to act that there is a very good chance will raise behind you pricing you out of your draw,

Post Flop - 3 players remain UTG, UTG+1 and the button.

Pot is 500

UTG bets - 100

UTG+1 (you) are getting the right odds to call right now

Button - short stack with 650 could easily shove all in raising an additional 550. even if UTG calls the all in you aren't getting the right price and can still be out drawn. In that case there is a good chance I would fold.

That is more a tournament sit & Go situation I think but you didn't specify.

Thats a point!!

When I posed the question I had assumed I was in last position .. so as to ensure correct odds.

and cash games as I dont play tournaments right now.

What I was initially thinking was pot size.... bigger the pot the bigger the cost .. even though the odds may be the same for a smaller pot the actual cost isnt.

With fluctuations in pot size can we still say that its a winning play to take say 6:1 odds on a 5:1 draw or do we also have to take into consideration weather or not this pot is 'average'?

Given the parameters you outlined, nothing.

If we are getting odds to call, and we can be sure we'll get the card, you'd be a fool not to take it. It's like there's a $5 bill on the ground, someone finds it first and says "I'll give it to you for $3". If you are practicing good bankroll management and don't mind losing the money in front of you on a +ev play, nothing should stop you from making the call. If the money in front is too much to lose, move down or get a job and play that level when you have enough to feel comfortable losing that much.

Stu_Ungar said:

Thats a point!!

When I posed the question I had assumed I was in last position .. so as to ensure correct odds.

and cash games as I dont play tournaments right now.

What I was initially thinking was pot size.... bigger the pot the bigger the cost .. even though the odds may be the same for a smaller pot the actual cost isnt.

With fluctuations in pot size can we still say that its a winning play to take say 6:1 odds on a 5:1 draw or do we also have to take into consideration weather or not this pot is 'average'?

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I don't understand what you mean by an average pot...but you do have to take relative stack sizes and implied odds into account.

what I mean by average pot is simply that it is of an average size for the game being played.

say the odds are 5:1 so every 6 times you would expect to win 5 and loose 1

Everything I read seems to say if the pot odds are bigger than the odds of making your hand.. take them!!

But if you assume that for some reason the pot size isnt average .. its say 3 times as much as usual.

And assume you loose (draw didnt come in.. 5 out of 6 times it wont)

Then It dosent seem to be a winning play because it has cost you 3 times as much as you normally put into a pot so when you do hit the draw (on another hand) you dont make your money back because the pot size will most likely be lower than this big one (because it wasnt average in the first place!!)

does that make any more sense?

it has nothing to do with the size of the pot though, your odds of winning remain the same. As long as you keep getting your money into the middle in favorable situations "over the long run" you will come out ahead regardless of the results of a single hand.

What you should be asking is why is the pot getting so big and are you SURE that if we hit our flush we will win. Pots don't get big for no reason and you need to make sure you know why.

Ok thanks guys

So in short forget pot size and just look at pot odds.

And make sure you are adiquatly bankrolled i.e 20 buyins / 300 x bb etc

Right...have a sufficient BR to play at the level you are playing and forget about pot size.

The reason pot size doesn't matter is that you lose 3 times as much but you also win 3 times as much. When you factor that in, say it's 5 to 1 normally, so instead you win 15 and lose 3, that reduces down to 5 to 1 still. The basis is that even if a hand is for your entire stack, over the long run you will make that decision again several times, the odds will even out in the long run, thus for big pots and small pots with those odds things will even out.

Not sure if you're familiar with ev calculations, but basically they equate to how much you will win. Say a friend offers you a coin flip, if it comes heads they'll pay you $500. Your ev would be 0.5*500 which is odds of x happening and payout of x. If you sum all possible outcomes you will get the total ev. In this situation you are paid $250 basically. Sure it'll always be $0 or $500, but over the long run this decision to take it nets you $250. When playing poker we try to pick the decision that makes this number the highest. If we fold our ev is always 0 because we can win 0 chips but we also can't lose any chips. So if calling a bet is +ev, then we want to do it (unless we think a raise is more +ev, but most of the time draws like this it is not the case). So in your example, you're getting 5:1 on your money, so say the pot's 4, opponent bets 1 (so now pot is 5, costs you 1).

Say the draw is 25% to hit, or 3 to 1. 1/4 of the time you win 5, 3/4 of the time you lose 1. That's .25*5 + .75*(-1) = 5/4 - 3/4 = 2/4 = 1/2. So by making that call you win 1/2 of the bet. Say the pot was $12 and they bet $3, you win $1.50 every time you make that call. Sure you always either lose $3 or win $15, but on average you win $1.50 every time you make that call. Thus the pot size is irrelevant when making your decision.

Also keep in mind that if you have a flush draw after the flop you have 2 more cards to come not 1. Your odds of hitting the flush by the river are better then 5-1.

bill_nj said:

Also keep in mind that if you have a flush draw after the flop you have 2 more cards to come not 1. Your odds of hitting the flush by the river are better then 5-1.

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But you can't take that into account unless you're all-in, because you will be facing another bet on the turn most likely. Of course you can take in better implied odds on the flop, but that's a whole other story.

Well with pot odds you have to consider what is going to happen on the turn. While you have a 35% chace of hitting your flush by the river, if you are potentially going to be facing a turn bet then even if you are given 2:1 odds to call on the flop you actually aren't getting odds (since the odds of you hitting by the turn is actually only about 20%).

I think a time that you could fold a FD is when you are faced with a short stack who you think will probably shove on the turn if you call the flop bet. 1. you aren't really getting pot odds unless you are getting better than 4:1 and 2. you have no implied odds at all since villains stack is not deep. Only really applies to tourns tho as you should never really be in a pot with a s/c vs a short stack.

Possibly how much the tourny means to me to win and how many players are left to act after me. You need to consider your position and pot odds. They are key to success in tournies.

95% of the time i would never fold this

RK