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In poker, chasing draws is not an ideal way to play cards, but sometimes it is called for. As much as we all want to flop Full Houses, often we will need to pay to see our hands develop. When you draw to such hands it is important to remember that there are not always guarantees that your hand will be the best even if you make it. One of the ways in which most chips are lost is when players pay to draw to a hand which will be losing anyway, then hit it.

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In Holdem it is more usual to have only one draw, but when you catch the right card, you will very often win. one of the best things about picking up a draw and making it on the turn or river is that your opponent doesn’t usually have a chance to catch another card to beat you. In Omaha, chasing draws is a very different prospect. Due to the fact that you are holding twice the number of hole cards, you will often have multiple cards to potentially make you strong hands. The problem is that your opponent has the same number of cards and can make stronger hands than trips, Straights, or even a Flush. You need to be very careful that you are drawing to a very strong hand compared to what possibilities are potentially on the table in Omaha, as each card can bring many more dangers into play.

If I pick up a Flush draw or open ended Straight draw on the flop in Holdem, I will usually try and see a turn card if I can, but once you are faced with a stronger raise before the river, you have to really look at whether your risk is worth the reward. If you feel your opponent has a fairly strong hand to pay you off with when you hit, and if there is already a reasonable pot to be won, you can sometimes say it is worth it. be careful though that you do not pay too heavily for a chance to catch one of 8 or 9 cards out of a remaining number of more than 45 cards.

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In online poker, depending on the player, a high card can sometimes be kept along with any pair you are holding in Five Card Draw, thus giving you the chance to pick up a strong two pair. The downside of this is obvious, in that you take away a card which could make you trips. Take this example (7,7,Q,5,A), we can see that drawing three cards maximises the chances of making a set of Sevens, and we may still hit two pair also, but holding the Ace gives a chance of making an Aces up two pair.

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In the final stages of a tournament just this evening I had two instances where holding a King with my pair would have led to making a two pair Kings up, and that could have changed my tournament greatly, as I would have then won both hands.

I never used to hold onto high cards with my pairs, as a two pair might not be enough to win often anyway, but recently I have discovered it has an extra benefit. When your opponent sees you draw two instead of three, they are far less likely to try and raise you out after the draw due to their fear of being up against trips. Despite this added benefit, I like to have the best chance of making a set too and so generally I alternate my play depending on the individual circumstances. Most players will generally hold or not hold a high card in the same way each time, and so paying attention to the tendancies of individual players will let you know when you should fear your opponent holding a set most often.

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Along with my tournament success this week, I have had a certain amount of success in this area too, although mostly earlier in the week. The second half of the week brought a change of luck, and required me to make some difficult folds. Flopping Flushes in Omaha that were second best and turning a Straight that was already dominated by a flopped Full House spring to mind, both of which ended in cash preserving folds on the turn.

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I guess that every upturn in fortune has to be followed by a downturn at some point, and mine arrived on Thursday. It is now Saturday morning, and I am still weathering the storm at the Omaha tables, with some of my profits from earlier in the week still intact. I have a target of points to reach on PKR by early May to free up a $75 bonus, so I am happy to keep putting in the hours at the cash tables no matter which way my luck chooses to go.

As well as these Omaha cash sessions, I took some time to play a small cash game against a friend of mine, with the play switching between Holdem and Omaha. Holdem was not overly kind to me, but I managed to win the game regardless, providing a confidence boost after my fortune changes online. The next week will entail much of the same I expect, although I may find some time to log into Pokerstars for some Five Card Draw too. Let us hope that both my cash games, and extra live tournament this evening, show a return of my early weeks form.

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This is a hand which took place at our recent live tournament. With the blinds still quite small, I picked up (Qd,9d) in the small blind. Two players limped in, then a third player on the button thought for a moment before flat calling too. I also called, and five players went to the flop. The flop came down (6d,7h,Jd).

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The action was checked around to the button who put in a rather large bet of 700. I felt if he had a set there would have been a raise preflop with his pocket pair, and perhaps he would have bet smaller too despite the two diamonds. He may have had a straight draw, which seemed more likely, but then he could easily have had nothing at all too. Either way, with a flush draw I called. The turn brought an (8c) now giving me an open ended straight draw too, and I checked, expecting it to be made expensive for me to draw to my flush and straight. Thankfully my opponent checked too, and the river was a perfect (10d). I bet 1,200 and was called, with my opponent turning up (A,A) and complaining about how lucky I had been.

This is of course ridiculous, as he had allowed five players in by not raising it preflop, which was difficult to understand and of course poor play. He would have been very lucky for his Aces to hold up against four other players, and I don’t think anyone could blame me for calling the 700 on the flop. If there had been an all in bet on the turn I would have been in a difficult position and also might have felt compelled to fold. This was the first of two occassions that evening that I ended up beating pocket Aces with diamond flush.

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This hand was an interesting one which played out at my local live event this week, and is still on my mind to an extent, mainly because I never found out for certain if my read was correct.
The hand began with myself being dealt (10c,3d) in the small blind. Two other players flat called as the action went round, and I felt there was value in flat calling and taking a flop. The big blind checked, and the flop came down (10,4,10). The action was checked round to me, and I felt as though I should perhaps check too, as there was a reasonable chance an overcard to a 4 would fall and make someone top two pair. An 8 came off on the turn, and the second player to act bet out small (200). I then reraised to 700, and after the other players had folded, my opponent thought for a while before making a large reraise to 2,500.

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This is a difficult position to be in, as I have only played with this player once or twice before and do not have a concrete feeling about the way he plays. Could he have been slow playing a bigger ten? Against three other players it would seem unlikely, but the board was not in the slightest bit dangerous to a hand like (K,10).
When it came down to it I decided to fold because if I called his bet on the turn, you could guarantee I would have to call for the rest of my chips on the river. I strongly feel that he did have a bigger ten, and if that were the case, I certainly didn’t have many outs on the river.

When I asked him what he had later on after the game, he said (K,K). The fact was though by my judgement, he had to be lying to try and convince me I had read him wrongly. Players simply don’t play (K,K) in the way he played that hand.

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If you are new to poker, I would recommend keeping your poker play fairly simple. If you pick up a good hand I would say, raise with it, be cautious of playable hands in early position, and bet out when you connect to try and see if you are in front. If you have been playing quite some time, you might still find basic poker is profitable for you, and if this is the case then you shouldn’t feel the need to change.

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For me though, the whole experience of playing poker is personified by making a correct read and pulling off a top class move to either pick up the chips, or prevent yourself losing most of them.
We would all love to play poker all evening and have (A,A) stand up against (K,K) on every key pot, and for each fold to be a simple one. But it has always been in pokers nature to present players with tests of skill and decision making during a game, and our responses to these will shape our result for the evening, as well as the long term.

I never ask to be involved in a tricky situation where I have to play some real poker to get away from my hand or pick up the pot with a good read, but that doesn’t mean I do not enjoy it. I have always been the type of player that relishes these scenarios, as they are the true test of skill during a game of poker.
As you improve your play at poker, you might find you start to surprise yourself with decisions you make in crucial hands, and the trust you have in your reading ability should always be the catalyst for making these excellent plays.

With the blinds at 4,000/8,000 and a chipstack of around 50,000 I was involved in a four way battle at the end of a tournament. The average stack at the table was around 40,000 and I picked up (6d,7d) in the small blind. In this situation, you could possibly say that playing it safe is reasonable, and there is nothing wrong with folding in this position. I can agree with that to an extent, but I feel that with the pressure being exerted each round with the blinds, something more aggressive is in order.

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Whilst on a full table, you wouldnt have much reason to get carried away with this hand at all, but I feel you have to do something other than fold it in the position described. When I was in this position a few nights ago, the action was folded around and I shoved all in to try and pick up the big blind. This seems reckless in some ways as I have no idea what the big blind is holding, but the fact is, that the size of the blinds doesn’t really leave me much room to put out a smaller raise. If my opponent with a 30,000 stack has strong enough cards to call a raise, he is likely to push the rest of his stack in and gamble with it. So I may as well make an all in bet that looks strong to increase the chance of him folding.

As it happens, my opponent had (Ah,Kh) and called, beating me. I have to say though that I do not regret the play I made, simply because a high percentage of the time my opponent will have no real cards and has to fold. If he does have a hand such as a strong ace or two paint cards he wants to gamble with, I have two live cards and am not a huge underdog.

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Calling a bet in poker can have it’s advantages, but in many situations, there are also negative points to consider too. On the plus side, you will get to see another card and perhaps improve your hand at minimal cost. This won’t necessarily be the case with multiple players in a hand, but heads up, you will always have this chance when you flat call. Simply calling a bet can often be the best way forward if you are drawing to a hand, for the reasons stated above, but you must be careful with this. If you do hit your hand, your opponent will have a better chance of reading the situation because of your previous flat call.

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Another point to think about when considering a call, is that your choice to do so may often be driven by an uncertainty of whether you are in front or not in a hand, and the flat call shows this. With this in mind, if your opponent is bluffing or semi bluffing in some way, they will be more likely to bet out on the next betting round, than they would be if you had simply reraised. If they were bluffing entirely, that reraise might even win you the pot outright.

The key point to remember is that the size and nature of the bets, calls and reraises you make are all representative of strength, or lack of it.
I do not call that many bets myself, although there is always a place where I feel it is the right option. I prefer to either fold or reraise more often. This way you are either getting away from the hand completely, or you are showing strength, picking up extra information, and potentially winning a pot.

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When it comes to being involved in a growing pot during a hand of poker, we would all ideally like to be sitting there with a completed flush or full house, but that is not the nature of poker. The size of the bet, the pot size, and the odds of completing a draw should all be carefully factored into your decision to stay in a hand or not. Importantly, you should try not to ever feel annoyed if you make the correct fold and find out your hand would have been completed. After all, if you made the most logical choice with the information available to you, you can’t ever blame yourself for that.

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One of the key mistakes you will find amateur players making, is to wait for hands too often, no matter what it costs them to find out. This is one of the reasons that players of this kind with luck on their side, can be so dangerous. Because sometimes you raise enough to force anyone with a weak draw out of the pot, then find out at the end that in fact a player called anyway, making what is technically a poor call, and has beaten you.

In a broader sense, we all spend time waiting for cards when our hole cards are not being too kind. This type of patience is an important part of poker, and if we can play this waiting game without damaging our chipstack too much, we give ourself the chance to get involved when the odds are stacked in our favour.