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.
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.
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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.
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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 fran.redline@gmail.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.
