Playing Your Drawing Hands: Advanced

by Dougie Goguen | May 4 2011

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Last week we talked about playing drawing hands. This week, we go into more detail.
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In this week's look at drawing hands, we're going to go into a bit more detail about things that could be termed “tips" or “tricks," but I find that they generally just fall under "good poker strategy." 

Once again, we're talking about Texas Hold 'Em poker in this piece, not Omaha or other games where drawing cards are much more of a challenge.

Late Position Flop Betting and You

The flop has gone down and you're just one card away from making a straight or a flush. Everyone checks to you and you're at the tail end of the rotation: what do you do? Try betting.

This does two things: it puts more money in the pot for you to win and it may well scare people that might try to bet into you on the turn. I've found that late position betting on the flop can frequently allow you to see the river for free because everyone's assuming you've got more than you actually do have. Heck, I've won hands by seeing the river for free and using a bit of late-position leverage to scare other players out of the hand.

Ace-Suited, King-Suited

You've got an Ace or a King and another card in the same suit that's much smaller. This can be problematic as it only satisfies one of the three factors we've talked about in the past concerning drawing cards in that the cards are suited, but only one of them is of a sufficiently high rank and they're not connected.

While they're not the best hand to play every time, you should consider going in with them when the table is passive or you can use late position betting on the flop to shake down a few players.

I really recommend sticking to smaller fields with these kinds of hands: even if you hit a big pair, you can find yourself washing out in the end.

Late Position Raises: Yes/No/Maybe

Late position raises are something that can be very rewarding, but you need to be very careful when holding drawing hands that are not absolutely sterling, even if a lot of people say the aggregate math makes it worthwhile.

Yes, it can expand the pot quite nicely with enough other players, but playing it too often can leave others weary of your aggression, even if you're grinding your way to profits.

I personally prefer to use this strategy only when playing at a more passive table.

Hopefully, this will help you learn a bit more about how to play hands that aren't quite perfect, but could be terrific with a bit of coaxing.

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