.jpg "3 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make")
This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
Playing drawing hands in no-limit hold’em can be tricky, and straight draws are no exception.
A lot of players struggle with straight draws: they either chase draws that are unlikely to complete, or they have trouble getting paid off once they do manage to hit their draws.
If you have trouble playing straight draws, keep reading.
In this article, we’ll go over x most common straight draw mistakes amateur poker players make, and more importantly, how to play straight draws optimally.
Let’s get right into it.
Straight Draw Mistake #1: Calling With Incorrect Pot Odds
In no-limit hold’em, most drawing hands are an underdog against a made hand on the flop. This means you should only call with drawing hands if you’re getting sufficient pot odds on a call.
The pot odds are the ratio between the price of a call and the size of the pot. In other words, it’s a risk-to reward ratio.
You can compare the pot odds with the odds of you completing your draw in order to figure out whether you can call profitably.
A lot of amateur poker players chase just about any draw, regardless of the pot odds they are getting on a call.
This is a big mistake due to the simple fact that most draws don’t complete in no-limit hold’em.
So you should only chase draws if the risk justifies the reward, otherwise you’re bleeding money over the long run.
To figure out whether or not you can call with a drawing hand profitably, first you need to calculate the pot odds.
To calculate the pot odds, you simply divide the size of the pot with the price of a call to get a ratio.
For example, let’s say the pot is $100 and you face a bet of $20.
In this spot, you are getting 5:1 odds on a call, because 100 / 20 = 5.
After you calculate the pot odds, you compare them to the odds of completing your straight draw.
The odds of completing a straight draw depend on a number of outs you have.
An out is a card that completes your draw on future streets. The more outs you have, the more likely you are to hit your draw.
When it comes to straight draws, you can have an open-ended straight draw or an inside straight draw.
Example of an open-ended straight draw:
You are dealt 8♥7♥ and the flop is: A♣6♥5♦
In this spot, any Nine or Four gives you the straight, meaning you have 8 clean outs.
Example of a inside (gutshot) straight draw:
You are dealt 8♥7♥ and the flop is K♦5♣4♠
Now you need a Six to complete your draw, meaning you have 4 clean outs.
As you can see, open-ended straight draws are stronger than inside straight draws because they have twice as many outs.
So how does this relate to pot odds?
It’s very simple. If you are getting better pot odds than the odds of completing the straight, you can call profitably.
If you’re not getting sufficient pot odds, you cannot call profitably, meaning you’d be losing money over the long run.
As mentioned, the odds of completing a straight depend on the number of outs you have.
The odds of completing an open-ended straight draw are 2.13:1 (or 32%).
The odds of completing an inside straight draw are 4.88:1 (or 17%).
By the way, you can quickly calculate the percentage chance of your draw completing by using the so-called rule of fours.
Rule of fours: simply multiply the number of outs you have by 4 to get a rough percentage chance of your draw competing from flop to river.
The rule of fours gets slightly less accurate the more outs you have, but it works well in most in-game situations.
If you want to know the chance of your draw completing on the next street (flop to turn or turn to river), you simply multiply the number of outs by 2 instead of 4.
Now let’s look at an example hand to see how you can use this in some common in-game situations.
Straight Draw Example Hand #1
Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt 7♠6♠ on the BU (button). A tight and aggressive (TAG) player open-raises to 3x from the MP (middle position). You call. Blinds fold.
Pot: 7.5 BB
Flop: K♣8♦5♥
Villain bets 7.5 BB.
You: ???
In order to figure out whether or not you can call profitably in this spot, you first need to calculate the pot odds.
The pot size is 15 BB after the villain’s bet, and you have 7.5 BB to call.
This means you are getting 2:1 odds on a call, since 15 / 7.5 = 2.
A quick hack you can remember is that you are always getting 2:1 odds when you face a pot-sized bet.
When you are getting 2:1 odds, you need more than 33% hand equity to call profitably.
Hand equity simply means the percentage chance of you winning the hand, either by winning at showdown or getting your opponents to fold.
In the example above, you are not getting sufficient pot odds on a call.
You are getting 2:1 odds, and you need at least 2.13:1 odds to call profitably.
This means your call is not outright profitable. But does that mean you should just fold?
Not necessarily.
Even though you are not getting sufficient pot odds, the implied odds may justify calling in this spot (more about the implied odds below).
Also, there’s more than one way you can win the pot in this example. If you raise the flop here, sometimes you can get your opponent to fold.
If they call instead, you still have a lot of equity to fall back on.
If you decide to raise in a spot like this, this is known as a semi-bluff.
You are semibluffing when you don’t have a strong hand yet, but can potentially improve to a strong hand on future streets.
Of course, you don’t have to worry about hitting your draw if your opponent simply folds.
This is why it’s usually a good idea to play your strong draws aggressively, because you are giving yourself more than one way to win the pot.
You can either take down the pot right away, or potentially take down an even bigger pot on future streets if you manage to hit one of your outs.
By the way, check out my recent video how to bluff with your straight draws.
Straight Draw Mistake #2: Calling With Gapper Hands
Another common straight draw mistake is playing hands that have a very low chance of completing a straight to begin with.
We’re talking about gapper hands, i.e. one-gapper or two-gapper hands.
Example of a one gapper hand: 8♣6♣
Example of a two gapper hand: T♦7♦
Gapper hands have a significantly lower chance of making a straight than connector hand.
For example, a hand like Jack-Ten can make a straight in 4 different ways, while a two-gapper hand like Jack-Eight can only make a straight in 2 different ways.
Let’s take a hand like J♥️8♥️ as an example.
You can only make a straight on two different board runouts:
T♦️9♣️7♥️
Or...
Q♠️T♦️9♣️
And on the second example flop, your hand can still potentially lose to King-Jack, meaning you need to take the reverse implied odds into account.
The bigger the gap between your hole cards, the less likely it is for you to make a straight.
And since strong hand combinations like straights don’t come around often in the first place, there’s no point in reducing your chances even further by playing mediocre hands.
Gapper hands may look playable at a glance, especially if they are suited.
But they have a far worse playability post flop than suited connectors, especially if you’re playing them for the sole purpose of hitting a straight post flop.
Calling preflop with gapper hands is especially troublesome, because your hand will often be dominated by stronger hands.
And since you’ll have no initiative post flop if you flat call preflop, you will often be forced to simply fold your hand in most cases when you inevitably miss the flop.
Now, this is not to say that gapper hands are totally unplayable, but calling with them preflop is likely to put you in a lot of awkward spots post flop, especially if you’re playing out of position.
If you can see the flop as the preflop aggressor, on the other hand, playing gapper hands (especially suited ones) is likely to be more +EV.
However, you should still be careful with open-raising these hands in early table positions, especially if you have aggressive 3-bettors left to act behind you.
A 3-bet preflop is a re-raise against another player's open raise.
If you’re open-raising from the late positions (i.e. the cutoff and the button), you can often expand your open-raising range significantly.
Straight Draw Example Hand #2
Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt J♦9♦s in the BB (big blind). A tight and aggressive player open-raises to 3x from UTG (under the gun).
You: ???
You should fold.
Calling in this spot is unlikely to be profitable for you over the long run. Let’s break it down to see why.
First of all, you’ll be playing the hand out of position post flop against a competent player who is likely open-raising with quite a strong range.
If you call here, your hand will often be dominated.
Let’s say your opponent is open-raising with medium pocket pairs or stronger, Ace-Jack or stronger, and strong broadway hands like King-Queen suited.
For more information on how to read your opponent's hand by assigning preflop ranges, check out The Microstakes Playbook.
Against this range, your hand only has 34% equity.
However, this doesn’t mean you can expect to win the pot 34% of the time. Your actual equity is likely lower due to the fact that you’re playing out of position.
Playing out of position makes it harder to realize your equity.
Also, you’re playing without the initiative and the range advantage, meaning your chances of winning the hand are even smaller.
The preflop aggressor has the range advantage, meaning they can theoretically have more strong hands in their range than the preflop caller.
Now, you may disagree with the range assigned to the preflop raiser, and fair enough.
But this is just an estimate that can help you make better in-game decisions.
If you’re interested in how you can calculate your equity against your opponent’s range yourself, you can use an equity calculator like Equilab.
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Straight Draw Mistake #3: Calling With Bad Implied Odds
Pot odds tell you if your call is outright profitable. However, if you are not getting sufficient pot odds on a call, you can still call with drawing hands if you’re getting decent implied odds.
Implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially earn on future streets if your draw completes.
While the pot odds are exact and precise, implied odds require a bit of guesswork.
A number of amateur poker players either disregard the implied odds when making their decisions, or they drastically overestimate the implied odds, leading them to make -EV calls.
There’s more to figuring the implied odds than simply looking at the effective stack size.
A lot of players simply look at the effective stack size, or the amount of chips left behind, and automatically assume this equates to the amount of money they can potentially earn.
While the amount of chips left behind does play a part in calculating the implied odds, there’s a lot more to it than that.
Here are a few key factors you should consider when determining your implied odds:
a) you get better implied odds on earlier streets than on later streets.
This one’s fairly self-explanatory.
Implied odds are bigger in the earlier stages of the hand, because there’s a lot more money that can potentially be shipped in the middle on future streets.
This means the implied odds are generally bigger on the flop than on the turn, for example.
b) you get better implied odds in position than out of position.
This one’s also a no-brainer. Playing in position makes it easier to control the pot size, because you get a final say at the price of the pot.
c) you get better implied odds against loose and aggressive opponents than tight and passive ones.
Just because you make a monster hand like a straight, it doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get paid off with it. In order to get paid off with a strong hand, your opponent must be willing to give you action, as well.
This means you are getting better implied odds against aggressive players who are likely to do the betting for you, or against loose players who are likely to call you down with a lot of weaker hands.
As a general rule, you are going to have better implied odds against recreational players than competent regulars, as the former are likely to make all sorts of mistakes like calling you down too wide, chasing bad draws and so on.
d) you are getting better implied odds when your opponent’s range is strong.
To win at poker, it’s not enough to just make the best hand. You also need to get action from a weaker hand.
So if you make a straight, for example, you’re only going to get paid off if your opponent has something worthy of calling you down with.
If your opponent’s range is very weak, on the other hand, you’re less likely to get action, meaning your implied odds aren’t great, either.
e) you are getting better implied odds if your hand strength is well-concealed.
Even if you make a strong hand, it’s not going to be worth much if your opponent can see right through it.
This means your implied odds are better when your hand strength is not immediately obvious.
Fortunately, completed straight draws are slightly less obvious than completed flush draws, for example, which bolsters your implied odds.
For example, consider the following board runout:
You are dealt 7♠6♠ and the board runout is: A♥8♣5♠J♥4♦
On this runout, your hand strength is relatively well-concealed, meaning your hand strength isn’t immediately obvious.
The board isn’t paired, and there aren’t any completed flush draws. Your opponent can easily give you action with a lot of weaker hands, like two pair hands, sets and so on.
Now, let’s look at an example hand to try to apply these factors in practice.
Straight Draw Example Hand #3
Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt 7♠6♠ in the BB (big blind). A tight and aggressive (TAG) player open-raises to 2.5 BB from the BU (button). You call.
Pot: 5.5 BB ♥♦♠♣
Flop: T♥9♣2♥
You check. Villain bets 3.5 BB.
You: ???
You should fold.
Let’s first consider the pot odds you are getting on a call.
You are getting 2.57:1 odds on a call, because the size of the pot after the villain’s bet is 9 BB, and you have 3.5 BB to call. So 9 / 3.5 = 2.57.
You have an inside straight draw, meaning you need at least 4.88:1 odds in order to call profitably.
So based on the pot odds, your call has negative expected value (it’s -EV).
What about the implied odds?
The implied odds aren’t great, either. You are playing the hand out of position, meaning it’s going to be harder for you to realize your equity.
Also, the villain looks like a competent regular, meaning they aren’t likely to make a lot of big mistakes like overcalling with top pair or overpair hands, for example.
What’s more, they are open-raising from the button, so their range is likely quite loose.
This means they won’t have a lot of strong hands that will be willing to give you action if you manage to hit your outs.
Speaking of outs, one of your outs is “tainted”. An Eight of hearts gives you a straight, but it can also potentially improve your opponent’s hand to a flush.
This means you need to consider the reverse implied odds, as well.
So calling is not likely to be +EV in this spot.
However, you can still consider trying to take down the pot with a check-raise.
For example, if you have a read that villain likes to make a lot of light c-bets, you can try to take down the pot with a semibluff.
A light c-bet is a bluff c-bet, meaning it’s made with the intention of getting your opponent to fold.
In today’s games, it takes more than waiting around for a premium hand to be a profitable long term winner.
You also need to look for edges in less than ideal circumstances. This means knowing how to play out of position against skilled opponents who won’t just roll over.
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3 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make - Summary
Knowing how to play drawing hands is an important aspect of a fundamental winning poker strategy.
To sum up, here are 3 most common straight draw mistakes you should avoid.
1. Calling with incorrect pot odds
The chance of completing an open-ended straight draw and inside straight draw (from flop to river) is 32% and 17%, respectively.
You need to compare these odds with the pot odds you’re getting on a call in order to figure out whether or not you can call profitably.
3. Calling with gapper hands
One-gapper and two-gapper hands (like 86 or T7) have significantly lower chances of hitting a straight than connector hands. The bigger the gap between your hole cards, the harder it is to make a straight.
This doesn’t mean the gapper hands are completely unplayable post flop, but you should still be aware of their limited nuts potential.
3. Calling with bad implied odds
Implied odds tell you how much money you can potentially earn on future streets. Implied odds are more complicated to calculate than pot odds and require a bit of guesswork.
Some of the factors to consider when calculating your implied odds are the strength of your opponent’s range, their playstyle and skill level, the effective stack size, and how likely you are to get paid off if you hit your draw.
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This article was written by Fran Ferlan
Poker player, writer and coach
Specializing in live and online cash games
For coaching enquiries, contact Fran at email@franferlan.com
Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $2000+ per month in small/mid stakes games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
