Reader David Young sent me an e-mail with questions about pot-limit draw. I responded to the first half of his questions in the last issue. Here are the rest:
Do you play straight draws the same way as flush draws?
If I was going to call with a flush draw, I also would call with a straight draw. That is, if I thought the situation warranted drawing to a flush, I would draw to a straight. If I make my hand and lose, it's usually not going to be to some hand that fits between a straight and a flush; it's going to be to a full house. Otherwise, I probably have to beat two pair or trips (or even just one pair), which a straight does just as nicely as a flush. Of course, sometimes I will be up against a pat hand, and then I don't want a straight. But that doesn't happen very often. I always prefer to be drawing to a flush, partly for the times I'm facing a pat hand and also because, even though it's a better hand than a straight, it's easier to make. But I don't throw away a straight draw in a situation in which I would play a flush draw.
How do you determine the size of your bets and raises? In the sample hand at the end of Part I, you have a player with three aces betting $8 into a $12 pot. So, is about two-thirds the size of the pot what you consider a normal bet?
That really comes under the heading of "it depends." (Doesn't that seem like a regular cop-out from poker writers? I know, but in most cases it does, and this is surely one of them.) I can't answer that in a vacuum. If I think I have the best hand, I try to bet the most that will be called. If I'm pretty sure my opponent is locked on with a good hand, or is a calling station, or thinks I bluff a lot, I'm much more likely to bet the pot than a fraction of it. If I'm positive my opponent will bet when I check and then call a pot-size raise, I may do that. If I have two players drawing one card behind me, I'm more likely to bet somewhere in the range of half to two-thirds of the pot. Then, if I'm raised, I can get away from the hand. Also, a lot of players raise exactly the size of the bet, and this saves me both on the amount I bet and the amount I call – if I call.
That $8 was just an example. I would bet less with several potential callers, particularly if one or more are likely to be holding a come hand and will either fold or raise. I would bet more if I was pretty sure one or more opponents held good hands (but, obviously, not better than three aces).
Do you generally bet the same amount whether your hand is strong or marginal in order to disguise its strength?
Again, that depends. If my opponent isn't too observant, I generally bet less with a vulnerable hand than a big hand. Even if my opponent is observant, he likely hasn't seen me bet in that situation often enough to figure out what my bet means. If I've been caught bluffing or if have bet fairly large with a marginal hand, I would certainly bet that same amount with a big hand.
I find that in the typical online pot-limit draw poker game, I don't have to disguise my hand by the size of my bet very often. This is because the competition is generally so weak. And when opponents are too challenging, I often just leave. It's not that I don't welcome a challenge; it's just that the types of opponents who are able to figure out what the size of a bet means are often also the ones who play very tightly or very trickily. I'm not usually thrilled to play against those who are more interested in trapping good players than they are in winning.
In the same example, is the $10 raise made by the player with three jacks (I calculate about one-third of the pot) a normal raise? What is the thinking behind these amounts?
It's not so much the relation of the bet to the size of the pot as it is to the previous bet. I often raise about twice what the player bets into me. However, some players are calling stations. When they bet the minimum after the draw with two pair or trips, they will call a pot raise. I always oblige players like that. Others will throw away a hand when they bet the minimum and get a moderate raise; I bluff them with a big raise. But when I have a hand that I want called, I raise such a player somewhere between the size of his bet and twice that amount.
In Part I you mention "value-betting and catching bluffs." Would you consider discussing these topics in a future article?
Sure.
Perhaps other readers have some of these same questions. In any case, thanks very much for your time.
Good questions, David. Thanks.
Michael Wiesenberg's The Ultimate Casino Guide, published by Sourcebooks, is available at fine bookstores and at Amazon.com and other online book purveyors. Send quandaries, quarrels, and quiddities to queue@CardPlayer.com.