Playing Draws On The Flop - NL Hold’em Strategy

Since 8-Game Mix and 7-Game Mix both include NL Hold’em I have expanded my Texas Hold’em strategy section.  This section contains around 25 articles written by a respected 2+2′er and more importantly, a winning player. This article was written by another respected player and I think that many of you H.O.R.S.E players making the transition to 7 or 8 Game poker will benefit from it.  Most of us mixed game players do not like to play no limit Texas Hold’em, or non fixed limit games in general,  and have limited knowledge of the proper strategies needed to make the NLTH rotation profitable.

A large number of poker players fail to really consider about how they are going to play their hands when they are faced with a draw once the flop cards are dealt onto the community board.

The first thing that players should think about is the possibility of what hands their opponents could be holding rather than thinking about their hand at this early stage.

Active players within the hand must be holding one of 3 types of poker hand, each of which represent different levels of strength.

The 3 possible types of hand that the players that are still active within the game are as follows:

An Empty Hand - This is the phrase that is given to a player who is holding a hand that has completely missed the flop, meaning that they are not in possession of a hand of any type of strength at that moment in time.

A Made Hand - This is the term that is referring to a players poker hand that has become stronger than it was pre flop, meaning that the player could have hit anything from a single card to make a pair, two cards to hit two pair or they have managed to make a powerful hand with either three of a kind or on the rare occasion four of a kind.

A Drawing Hand - This term is used to describe a players hand that has not been made stronger by the flop being dealt onto the community board but another card could provide the player with the strongest hand.

Generally players should consider that if a draw is dealt onto the board during the flop and players are willing to place bets into the central pot, that one or more of the players who is active within the hand is holding top pair.

This means that either players who are continuing within the hand are either also holding cards of strength equal or greater than the top pair or the bet was not large enough to prevent a player paying to see the next card on the board to empower their drawing hand.

Knowing that within the general situation that this rule should apply, players should be looking to consider their pot odds versus their winning odds. This is where a large number of new and inexperience poker players fail to fully consider their actions as a number of them fail to understand how they can work out their odds.

An example of this is to focus on the number of outs that a hand consists of, so looking at a drawing hand which is made up of either a straight or a flush, we would work out our odds from the fact that both of these hands would offer either 8 or 9 outs.

The term outs refers to the number of cards that are held within the possible cards that could be dealt from the deck as the hand continues to play out.

Knowing this information, the chances of hitting the card that you are chasing is worked off the fraction of possibility of 4-1 as the turn card is dealt. Should the player miss one of their outs on the turn the players chances slightly improve to 2-1 should the player decide they would like to see the next card, referred to as the river card.

Common practice would be that should you miss your outs on the turn and your opponent or opponents begin betting into the pot, you would lay your hand down. Continuing in the hand will not only cost you more of your chip stack but will also leave you fishing for your cards, a position that no poker player should look to be in at any point in the game.