Drawing hands in no limit hold em are prime opportunities to make what’s known as a semi-bluff: a bet with a hand that, while currently trailing, has a lot of outs to improve to the best hand. Most players learning the game quickly realize that aggressive poker is winning poker, and they quickly latch onto the semi-bluff. In fact, many players will routinely abuse the semi-bluff, betting aggressively even where an opponent is likely to call them. The result is not aggressive, winning poker: it’s putting your entire stack on the line as a 2:1 underdog (or worse).
To be clear, a semi-bluff is still a bluff, and therefore useful only when your opponent is weak. You should semi-bluff when you think your opponent has either no hand, or some sort of mediocre hand like a weak top pair, second pair or worse. If your opponent has shown strength pre-flop and on the flop and/or the board is coordinated with straight and flush draw potential, you should be very hesitant to push your draw aggressively.
An example: Your opponent raises pre-flop in early position and you call on the button with JT of diamonds. The flop comes KQ5 with two spades. Yes, you’ve flopped an open-ended straight draw and will complete your hand 32% of the time by the river. But your opponent could have AK, AQ or KQ, trip kings or trip queens and be unwilling to release the hand. [As pointed out by Derek below, if your opponent holds aces this could eliminate two of your outs as well]. In this situation, it rarely makes sense to push your draw aggressively. You may not fold right on the flop, but you should tread carefully.
On top of that, although your hand has great potential, it’s what’s known as a pure draw. If you don’t make your straight you basically have nothing. If you had a pair and a straight draw, a straight and a flush draw, or a draw with overcards, you could have even money or better potential against your opponent. In that case, you can afford to play the hand more aggressively because your hand has so much potential.
But when you only have a pure draw, you’re a solid dog to any made hand your opponent might have. Pure draws are rarely good for semi-bluffing unless the flop is likely to have missed your opponent.
In short, don’t mindlessly push all draws you flop merely for the sake of being aggressive. Instead, read the board and consider the likely strength of your opponent’s hand before deciding whether to play passively or aggressively. If the board is dangerous and coordinated and your opponent has shown strength pre-flop and on the flop, it rarely makes sense to push a pure draw.
#1 by Derekpallardy on July 28th, 2009
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It’s impossible to have trip aces with a KQ5 board…I’m sure you meant trip queens. You also should mention that if your opponent does have AA or AK, you have less outs with one or two aces out of the deck.
Also, a board that has a potential flush draw that doesn’t match your cards might also limit your outs…for example Kd Qc 5c…if your opponent hold the AK of clubs, you’re down to 6 outs with a healty redraw for your opponent.
#2 by Jonathan Gelling on July 28th, 2009
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Excellent points, Derek. And thanks for pointing out the typo (I went ahead and corrected that in the post)… sometimes it’s easy to get ahead ahead of yourself when you’re typing out a blog post.
In my original example (if I could get picture cards to work better on this blog) I was going to have 5s, Qs, Kh flop and point out your opponent could even have a flush draw himself (AsKs). Basically I wanted to make clear you had a pure straight draw without even a backdoor flush draw.
Thanks for the tips!