3 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

Poker is an easy game when you flop a monster hand, but this is more of an exception than the rule.

Most of the time, you will either miss the flop completely, or have some sort of a marginal or a drawing hand.

So how do you play drawing hands like straight draws in no limit hold’em? Do you just call and hope for the best?

Not necessarily.

In this article, we’ll go over 3 most common mistakes amateur poker players make when playing straight draws.

Let’s get right into it!

Poker Straight Draw Mistake #1: Playing Straight Draws Passively

As a general rule, the stronger your draw, the more aggressively you should play it.

There are 2 factors that influence the strength of your draw: how many outs you have, and how strong your hand will be if you manage to hit one of your outs.

The outs are the cards in the deck that you need to complete your straight. 

For example:

Let’s say you are dealt 7♦6♦ and the flop is: A♥9♣8♠

In this spot, you have 8 outs, because any Five or any Ten gives you a straight.

If you have a strong draw like in this example, your best bet is to usually play it fast.

This means betting and raising when given the opportunity.

If you play your straight draw passively, (i.e. check or call instead) the only way for you to win the pot is to hit your outs on future streets.

But if you fastplay your draw, you can often take down the pot right away if you make your opponent fold.

This means you don’t have to rely on getting lucky and hitting your outs to actually win the hand.

So playing your straight draws aggressively simply gives you more than one way to win the pot.

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How to Win Bigger Pots With Your Straight Draws

This brings us to the second reason to fastplay your straight draws, and that is to potentially take down an even bigger pot if you hit your outs.

Suppose you bet the flop and hit one of your outs on the turn. When this happens, it’s a lot easier to put more money in the middle if the pot is big enough to begin with.

If you wait to actually complete your draw to start building up the pot, you won’t win as much money by the end of the hand.

This has to do with pot geometry. The bigger the pot you build up on earlier streets, the easier it is to ship the rest of your stack in the middle on future streets.

So missing one street of value can spell the difference between taking down a small pot and totally stacking your opponent.

Strong hands like straights don’t really come around often in no-limit hold’em, so you have to make sure you get your money’s worth once you actually make it.

For example, let’s say you are dealt a suited connector like 76s.

By the way, when I say "s" that means both cards are the same suit. When I say "o" that stands for off-suit, two different suits.

76s is a great versatile hand that can hit a variety of different flop textures.

But the chance of actually flopping a straight with 76s is only 1.29%!

You have a much better chance of flopping a straight draw, but this is also far from likely.

The chances of flopping an open-ended straight draw and an inside straight draw with 76s are 9.6% and 16.6%, respectively.

So once you do flop a monster draw, make sure to get your money’s worth with it.

Straight Draw Example Hand #1

Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB

You are dealt 7♦6♦ in the BB (big blind). Villain open-raises to 2.5 BB from the CO (cutoff). You call.

Flop: K♠5♥4♦

You: ??? 

You should check-raise.

This is a good spot to play aggressively for a few reasons.

First of all, you can often win the pot right away with a check-raise.

This is one of the 5 lessons all poker beginners should know.

Even if your opponent has a relatively strong hand like a pair of Kings, they aren’t going to be comfortable facing a strong line like a check-raise.

And if your opponent missed the flop (which is often the case), they will have to fold, and you’ll take down the pot with only Seven-high.

If your opponent calls instead, you can keep barreling on the turn, either as a bluff if you don’t hit your outs, or you can bet for value if you hit a Three or an Eight.

Now, contrast this with a passive line like check-calling.

Suppose you check-call and you hit a Three on the turn. Then what?

You can either bet out of position (i.e. donk bet), or you can choose a check-raise line.

If you go for a donk bet, it’s going to be painfully obvious that you have a strong hand, and your opponent won’t be willing to give you action.

But if you go for a check-raise, there’s nothing stopping your opponent from just checking back instead of betting again.

This is why choosing an aggressive line is usually preferable to more passive lines.

Bottom line: Playing your straight draws aggressively simply gives you more options, and it makes it a lot harder for your opponents to play against you.

I discussed this in a lot more detail in my latest video, 10 basic strategies every beginner should know.

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Poker Straight Draw Mistake #2: Calling With the Wrong Pot Odds

Drawing hands like straight draws and flush draws are almost always an underdog to a made hand on the flop.

So when you’re pondering a call with a drawing hand, one of the first things you should consider is if you’re getting sufficient pot odds on a call.

Simply put, the pot odds are the ratio between the pot size and the price you need to pay to continue playing the hand.

Put another way, the pot odds represent the risk to reward ratio.

To calculate the pot odds, you simply divide the pot size after your opponent’s bet with the price of the call.

For example, let’s say the pot size is $100 and your opponent bets $50.

After your opponent’s bet, the pot size is $150, and you have $50 to call.

Reward: $150

Risk: $50

This means you’re getting 3:1 pot odds on a call, because 150 / 50 = 3.

The first, bigger number always represents the pot size, and the number 1 always represents the price you need to call.

At its core, poker is all about assessing the risk and reward, so you should get into the habit of always calculating the pot odds when you’re faced with the opportunity to call a bet.

The better the pot odds you’re getting, the more often you can continue playing the hand profitably and vice versa.

However, you can’t really figure out if a call is profitable based on the pot odds alone.

In order to know if a call is profitable, you have to compare the pot odds with your hand equity.

Your hand equity simply refers to the percentage chance of winning the hand if players took their hand to showdown.

This is easy to check by the way if you're using a simple HUD software online.

The problem is that you can never know your exact equity, because you can’t see your opponent’s hole cards.

So the best you can do is compare your hand strength versus your opponent’s range.

Your opponent’s range represents all the hands they could potentially have in a given spot.

As you get more experience, you’ll be able to assess your equity versus your opponent’s range based on your hand strength.

You can also use a shortcut to determine the chance of completing your draw 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.

With an inside straight draw and an open-ended straight draw, you will have 4 and 8 outs, respectively.

So by using the rule of fours, your chance of completing your draw is 16% and 32%, depending on the number of outs.

This is fairly close to your actual chance of improvement.

Now let’s examine how you can use the rule of fours paired with the pot odds by looking at an example hand.

Straight Draw Example Hand #2

You are dealt 8♣7♣ and the flop is: A♥T♠6♦ 

The pot size is $100 and your opponent bets $50.

Reward: $150

Risk: $50

Pot odds: 3:1

To compare the pot odds with your hand equity, first you need to convert the pot odds into a percentage.

One quick way to do that is to add the numbers of the ratio, then divide 100 by the result.

So you add 3 + 1 = 4.

100 / 4 = 25%.

This means you need roughly 25% equity to break even on a call when you’re getting 3:1 pot odds.

In the example hand above, you have 4 clean outs, as any Nine will give you the nuts straight.

By using the rule of fours, your chance of improving from flop to river is roughly 16%.

This means that you’re not getting sufficient pot odds on a call, so calling here is likely to cost you money over the long run.

However, it’s worth mentioning that pot odds only tell you if your call is OUTRIGHT profitable.

Pot odds don’t tell you anything about additional money that can go into the pot at some point later in the hand.

Also, you can try to take down the pot with a bluff, either right away on the flop or on future streets.

So if you’re not getting sufficient pot odds on a call, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to fold right away.

But you should still get into the habit of figuring out the pot odds every time you’re pondering a call.

This way, you will avoid making bad calls that are likely to cost you money over the long run.

If you’re still confused on the topic of pot odds, check out my ultimate pot odds cheat sheet for an in-depth guide on the topic.

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Poker Straight Draw Mistake #3: Drawing to the Bottom End of a Straight

Apart from the number of outs you have, the second factor that determines the strength of your draw is how strong your hand is going to be if you hit one of your outs.

This means you have to figure out how strong your hand is in relation to the board runout, as well as your opponent’s range.

A lot of amateur poker players make the mistake of chasing just about any draw because they believe they will almost always win the hand if they hit.

This is simply not the case, and it can easily lead to a loss of a big pot.

When assessing your hand strength, it’s important to differentiate between relative and absolute hand strength.

Learning this is one of the easiest ways to improve your poker game in 30 days.

Absolute hand strength determines how strong your hand is overall. For example, two pair is stronger than one pair, a flush is stronger than a straight and so on.

Relative hand strength, on the other hand, shows you how strong your hand is in relation to the board runout.

A lot of recreational players overvalue their absolute hand strength, while disregarding their relative hand strength.

Let’s use an example to illustrate the difference between absolute and relative hand strength.

Let’s say you are dealt 6♠5♠ and you see the following board runouts: 

Board #1:

K♥4♠7♥3♦J♣

Board #2:

K♥8♠7♥A♣9♥

You have a straight on both boards, so your absolute hand strength is the same.

However, your relative hand strength is vastly different.

On board #1, you have the stone cold nuts, i.e. the strongest possible combination.

That’s not the case on board #2, though. Not only are you potentially losing to a stronger straight (JT), but there is also a possible flush on the board.

So if your opponents starts making big raises on board #2, it’s likely they actually have you beat.

Remember, your opponent sees the same board runout as you do.

So when they start betting and raising aggressively, they’re letting you know they’re not really afraid of the board runout.

This is because they usually have the nuts (or close to it), and they’re politely letting you know that your weak straight is probably no good.

Yet, a lot of amateur players will still play their hand to the bitter end, because they perceive it to be a lot stronger than it actually is.

So when playing drawing hands, always consider how different turn and river cards can influence the board runout, and what it means to your relative hand strength.

In practice, this means you should be careful when drawing to the bottom end of a straight.

Drawing to the bottom end of a straight means that you won’t have the nuts (i.e. the best hand) even if you hit your outs, because there’s a potentially stronger straight that can beat you.

Straight Draw Example Hand #3

Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB

Let’s say you are dealt 6♠5♠ again and you see the following flop:

A♥9♥8♣

In a spot like this, not only is your draw weak because you have only 4 outs, but you won’t even make the best possible hand if you hit a Seven.

That’s because your opponent can still beat you with Jack-Ten.

Not only that, but one of your outs is “tainted”.

A Seven of hearts can potentially make a flush for your opponent, so you actually only have 3 clean outs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should automatically fold your hand in a spot like this.

But you do need to be careful if your opponent starts making big bets and raises on future streets, especially on well-coordinated boards like in the example above.

To be a winning poker player these days, it’s not enough to just wait around for the nuts and value bet your strong hands.

You also need to be able to make big laydowns and save your money when you suspect your hand is no good anymore.

Being able to make a big laydown in a difficult spot can spell the difference between breaking even and totally crushing the game.

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3 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make - Summary

Playing straight draws can be tricky, but you don’t necessarily need to learn a lot of advanced poker strategy to play them profitably.

All you need to do is avoid some common mistakes a lot of recreational players make with their drawing hands.

To sum up, here are 3 most common straight draw mistakes you should eliminate from your game straight away.

1. Playing straight draws passively

As a general rule, the stronger your draw, the more aggressively you should play it.

If you play your straight draws aggressively, you can often take down the pot right away.

Remember, you don’t need to rely on hitting your outs if you just make your opponent fold, instead.

2. Calling with the wrong pot odds

Pot odds represent the risk-to-reward ratio, which poker is all about.

Before making an automatic call with a drawing hand on the flop, first consider the pot odds, then compare them to the chance of actually hitting one of your outs on future streets.

3. Drawing to the bottom end of a straight

Aside from the number of available outs, you should also consider how strong your hand is going to be if you actually do hit one of your outs.

If your relative hand strength is likely to be weak, it’s probably not worth chasing that straight in the first place.

---

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 fran.redline@gmail.com

Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here

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4 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

Drawing hands can be tricky to play in no-limit hold’em, and straight draws are no exception.

With so many factors to consider, it can be hard to figure out the most profitable line in each spot you play.

If you often feel stumped when you flop a straight draw, keep reading.

In this article, we’ll go over 4 most common straight draw mistakes, and more importantly, the right way to play your straight draws.

Let’s get right into it.

Straight Draw Mistake #1: Chasing Inside Straight Draws

One of the most common amateur poker mistakes is chasing too many draws.

In no-limit hold’em, most draws don’t complete, and drawing hands are almost always an underdog to the made hand on the flop.

This means you should only chase strong draws that have a reasonable chance of completing by the river.

Provided of course, you’re getting sufficient pot odds or implied odds on the call.

The strength of your draw is determined by the two factors: the number of outs you have, and how strong your hand will be if your draw completes.

Let’s discuss the number of outs first.

An out is a card that you need to complete your draw. The more outs you have, the stronger your draw and vice versa.

This brings us to the problem with calling with inside straight draws (aka gutshot draws).

Here’s an example of a inside straight draw: 

You are dealt 7♦6♦ and the flop is K♥8♣4♠.

In this spot, you need a Five to complete your draw, so you have 4 outs to a straight.

The chance of completing an inside straight draw from flop to river is only 17%.

If you prefer the odds, the odds of completing an inside straight draw are 4.88:1 against.

By the way, you can quickly calculate the percentage chance of your draw completing by using the so-called rule of fours.

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Rule of fours explained

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.

By using the rule of fours on the inside straight draw example, you would get the chance of completing your draw to be 16% (since 4 outs times 4 equals 16), which is quite close to your actual 17% chance of improvement.

Now, all of this is not to say that you can never call profitably when you have an inside straight draw.

But as far as drawing hands go, gutshot draws aren’t in great shape against made hands on the flop.

So if you choose to chase any gutshot draw regardless of the odds you’re getting on the call, chances are you’ll be bleeding money over the long run.

Now, contrast the gutshot draws with open-ended straight draws.

Example of an open-ended straight draw: 

You are dealt 7♦6♦ and the flop is K♥5♣4♠.

In this spot, you have twice as many outs, as any Three or Eight gives you a straight.

This means your draw is almost twice as likely to complete.

The chance of an open-ended straight draw completing from flop to river is 32%.

Here again you can see the rule of fours working well, since 8 outs times 4 equals 32.

What this means in practice is that you’ll  get the correct price on a call far more often than you would with an inside straight draw.

You can also consider raising with an open-ended straight draw when facing a bet, since you have so much equity to fall back on in case you get called.

When you play your drawing hands this way, you’re essentially semibluffing.

You are semibluffing when you don’t have a made hand yet, but can potentially improve to a strong hand on later streets if you manage to hit your outs.

Semibluffing is usually preferable to stone-cold bluffing, where the only way for you to win the pot is by making your opponents fold.

This is discussed in much more detail in The Microstakes Playbook.

Again, this doesn’t mean you can’t semibluff with gutshot straight draws as well.

But this play will have a worse expected value due to the fact that your hand equity will be much lower in case your bluff gets called.

By the way, I made a recent video on How to Bluff When You Have Nothing (correct way):

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Straight Draw Mistake #2: Calling With Gapper Hands Preflop

Another common amateur poker mistake is calling with way too many hands preflop.

As a general rule, calling is the last option you should consider preflop, and you should only call if other options don’t make sense.

In poker, you’re going to win the most money by getting to the flop as the preflop aggressor, not the preflop caller.

If you’re using a hand tracking software like PokerTracker 4, you can check these stats yourself.

Chances are, you’d be surprised by how much more you win when you get to the flop as the preflop aggressor as opposed to being the preflop caller.

Calling preflop is especially problematic if you call with mediocre hands like suited gappers.

When talking about suited gappers, we’re usually talking about one-gapper and two-gapper hands like T♥8♥ or 8♠5♠. 

The bigger the gap between your hole cards, the harder it is to make a straight post flop.

This means that connector hands will make a straight far more frequently than gapper hands.

For example, a hand like JTs can make a straight in 4 different ways.

And a three-gapper hand like J7s can only make a straight one way.

For this reason, suited connectors have way better postflop playability than suited gappers.

By the way, if you want to learn all the hands I suggest playing, I cover this in extensive detail in my BlackRain79 Elite Poker University.

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JT vs J9 Example

Let’s take hands like Jack-Ten suited and Jack-Nine suited as examples.

Jack-Ten suited will flop an open-ended straight and a gutshot straight draw 9.6% and 16.6% of the time, respectively (total of 26.2%).

Jack-Nine suited will flop open-ended straight and a gutshot straight draw 6.93% and 14.6% of the time, respectively (total of 21.53%).

This may not seem like much of a difference, but remember that poker is a game of razor-thin margins in the first place. 

Over the long run, a few percentage points add up to a tremendous difference in the overall profitability.

Also bear in mind that two gappers flop even worse than one-gappers and so on.

And if you’re curious what’s the chance of outright flopping a straight with a hand like J9s, it’s 1%.

Flopping strong combinations like straights (or even straight draws) are more of an exception than the rule.

So if you’re playing a certain hand for the prospect of hitting that monster on the flop, you’re likely in for a disappointment.

The problem with suited gapper hands is that they have poor playabillty post flop if they don’t make strong combinations like a straight or a flush.

For example, a hand like Jack-Nine suited will only flop a top pair 13.4% of the time.

And even if it does, you still have a mediocre kicker to worry about, since your hand can easily be dominated by stronger Jx hands like AJ, KJ and so on.

Even if your opponent doesn’t have a stronger Jx hand, you still have a bunch of overcards to dodge on future streets.

Of course, all of this is not to say that gapper hands are totally unplayable.

Suited gappers still have decent nuts potential, and can be played profitably in certain spots.

But calling with gapper hands preflop with the sole purpose of hitting a straight post flop is not likely to be a winning proposition over the long run.

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Straight Draw Mistake #3: Disregarding the Relative Hand Strength

Another common amateur poker mistake is overvaluing certain hand combinations.

In other words, a lot of amateur poker players fail to recognize the difference between their absolute and relative hand strength.

Absolute hand strength tells you how strong your hand is compared to the hand rankings ranging from one pair to royal flush.

Relative hand strength, on the other hand, tells you how strong your hand is in relation to the board runout.

A lot of poker beginners tend to focus on absolute hand strength, while disregarding their relative hand strength.

For example, if they happen to get something they perceive as a strong combination, they’ll usually cling on to it and refuse to fold, without realizing their relative hand strength is weak.

Here’s an example to illustrate the point between the relative hand strengths.

Let’s say you’re dealt T♦9♦ and see these two board runouts: 

Board #1

J♥8♠2♦A♣7♥

Board #2

J♥8♠8♥A♣7♥

You have a made straight on both of these boards, so your absolute hand strength is the same.

But your relative hand strength is very different.

On board #1, you have the stone cold nuts, i.e. the strongest combinations possible.

You can only lose the hand if you happen to misread it and fold it by accident.

But the board #2 is a different story.

You also have a straight on the second board, but there are a number of different combinations that can beat you.

Your opponent can beat you with a number of different flushes or full houses.

So how does relative hand strength tie into playing straight draws successfully?

As mentioned, the strength of your draw is determined by the number of outs you have and the strength of your hand if your draw completes.

This means that not only do you need to hit your outs to win the hand, but you need to make sure you’ll have the best hand if you do hit your outs.

If not, you’ll need to take the reverse implied odds into account.

Implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially earn on future streets if your draw completes. 

Reverse implied odds refer to the amount of money you can lose if your draw completes, but your opponent ends up having an even stronger hand.

It doesn’t make sense to chase draws if you’re not improving to the best hand when you hit your outs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should only chase draws  if you’re drawing to the stone cold nuts.

It just means that you need to carefully weigh the risk and reward, and consider the fact you may be drawing to the second best hand.

This means that you’ll sometimes need to discount some of your outs, because some of them might be “tainted”.

A tainted out is a card that can improve your hand, but can also potentially improve your opponent’s hand even more.

Let’s look at an example hand to illustrate the point.

Straight Draw Example Hand #1

You are dealt 8♠7♠ in the BB (big blind). Villain open raises to 3x from the CO (cutoff). You call.

Pot: 6.5 BB 

Flop: K♥9♣6♥

In this spot, you have an open-ended straight draw, so you have 8 outs. However, 2 of your outs are “tainted”.

T♥ and 5♥ will give you a straight, but they can also potentially complete the villain’s flush draw.

This means that these cards may or may not give you the best hand on future streets, depending on your opponent’s holdings.

Again, this doesn’t doesn’t mean you should only play drawing hands if you’re drawing to the nuts.

It just means you should consider the board runout carefully, and if a lot of your outs potentially help your opponent’s range more than yours, your draw just may not be worth chasing.

This is especially the case if you’re not getting favourable odds to call in the first place.

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Straight Draw Mistake #4: Playing Strong Draws Too Passively

As a general rule, the stronger your draw, the more aggressively you should play it.

So if you flop a strong drawing hand like an open-ended straight or a flush draw, you should consider raising instead of calling.

Example: You have A♥️T♥️ and the flop comes 8♥️4♠️2♥️

This way, you’re giving yourself more than one way to win the pot.

You can either win the pot right away by making your opponent fold, or you can win an even bigger flop on future streets if you manage to hit one of your outs.

A lot of amateur poker players tend to play their draws passively, so they fail to extract maximum value once they actually manage to hit their draws.

That’s because more observant players will be less likely to give you action if they spot a potential completed draw on future streets.

If you raise with your drawing hands instead, your opponent will have a much harder time of putting you on your exact hand if you complete your draw.

Remember, most draws don’t complete in no-limit hold’em, so sometimes you need to find a way to win the pot even without a particularly strong hand.

You don’t need to rely on hitting your outs if you make your opponents fold.

Playing your strong draws aggressively is one of the ways you can improve your red line, aka your non-showdown winnings.

In poker, most of the money you’ll make will come from your strong value hands where your opponent has a weaker hand that’s willing to pay you off.

The problem is, these strong value hands don’t come around very often.

So it really pays off to find ways to win pots without needing to rely exclusively on your hand strength.

If you do decide to bluff in certain spots, though, it’s always better to have some sort of equity to fall back on in case your bluff gets called.

This is why it’s better to semi-bluff with your strong draws, especially if you’re drawing to the nuts. 

I give you tons of examples of exactly how to do this in Crushing the Microstakes.

Straight Draw Example Hand #2

$1/$2 Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB

You are dealt 8♦7♦ in the BB (big blind). Villain open-raises to $6 from the CO (cutoff).

Pot: $13

Flop: A♦9♣6♠

You: ???

You should check-raise to 2.5x the size of the villain's c-bet.

This is an excellent spot to semibluff and try to take down the pot with an Eight-high.

You have an open-ended straight draw, meaning you have 8 clean outs to the nuts.

You also have a backdoor flush draw, which adds a nice little boost to your overall equity.

A backdoor draw means you need both turn and river cards to complete your straight.

If you check-raise here, you’re putting a tremendous amount of pressure on your opponent.

Villain will have a hard time calling you down with a number of Ax hands, not to mention the weaker parts of their overall range.

You’ll be able to push your opponent out of the pot with a lot of hands that are actually ahead of you equity-wise.

Think hands like strong broadways (KQs or QJs), pocket pairs like pocket Tens or pocket Jacks and so on.

A lot of hands that villain chooses to c-bet with will have a hard time standing up to the pressure of a check-raise.

Even if villain calls your check-raise, you still have a tremendous amount of equity to fall back on on future streets.

This means you can keep applying the pressure on the turn if you miss your draw, or bet for value if you do improve to a straight.

A lot of beginner poker players will opt for the check-calling line here, but this makes it harder to extract value on future streets if they hit their outs.

Let’s suppose you check-call on the flop, and hit a Five on the turn.

You’ve made your nuts straight, but how do you expect to extract value from your opponent?

You are playing out of position, so you need to hope villian will fire another barrel on the turn so you can check-raise.

The risk of this line is that villain can simply choose to check back instead.

Alternatively, you can go for a donk-betting line.

A donk bet means betting into the previous street’s aggressor.

But if you do this, it’s going to ring alarm bells in any semi-competent opponent.

When you start betting out of the blue in the middle of the hand, it’s usually very apparent that you have a monster hand, so you’re not likely to get action with the donk-betting line.

Check out my other article on the 5 bad poker strategies to learn why you should avoid donk-betting.

4 Straight Draw Mistakes Fish Always Make - Summary

Drawing hands can be tricky to play in no-limit hold’em, and straight draws are no exception.

But you don’t need to learn a lot of advanced poker strategy in order to play them profitably.

All you need to do is avoid some common straight draw mistakes a lot of recreational players are guilty of.

To sum up, here are 4 common straight draw mistakes you should avoid:

1. Chasing inside straight draws

The chance of completing an inside straight draw is only 17% (or 4.88:1 against), so you should only chase inside straight draws if you’re getting sufficient pot odds or implied odds on a call.

2. Calling with gapper hands preflop

One-gapper and two-gapper hands have a lower chance of hitting a straight post flop than connector hands.

Another problem with calling with gapper hands preflop is that you’ll often run into kicker problems post flop, meaning you run the risk of your hand being dominated.

3. Disregarding the relative hand strength

A completed straight is only a strong hand in relation to the board runout. 

Depending on the board, the strength of your straight can range from the stone-cold nuts to a pitiful bluff catcher.

Don’t overplay your made straights on boards with potential flushes or paired boards with potential full houses.

4. Playing straight draws passively

Most draws don’t complete in no-limit hold’em, so you shouldn’t rely exclusively on hitting your outs to have profitable sessions.

Consider raising your strong drawing hands on the flop instead of calling and praying to hit.

This way, you’re giving yourself more than one way to win the hand. Remember, you don’t need to hit your outs if you make your opponents fold right away.

---

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.

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.

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Straight Draw Example Hand #1

Now let’s look at an example hand to see how you can use this in some common in-game situations.

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.

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.