Poker Drawing Hands

For our purposes, a big poker drawing hand with be defined broadly as either a flush draw and a straight draw (gutshot or open ended) or a flush draw with two overcards (preferably live ones! :P). How to play poker properly can be very challenging. The ultimate example of a big draw should be Js10s on a board of 99s8s vs pocket twos.

Despite having a "worse" hand than 22 with Jack High you are a significant favorite to win; you can hit two eights, three jacks, three tens, four queens, four sevens or seven spades for a total of twenty three outs, twice. Now most strong draws aren't nearly this strong but an open ended straight draw + flush draw is a favorite over any one pair hand (unless that pair is a higher flush draw as well), a strong contender versus two pair and in decent shape against a set (35-65).

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It is almost always most profitable to play both big draws and sets the same; very aggressively. Doyle Brunson recommends leading into the raiser with these types of hands and most of the time I agree with this philosophy. The theory here is, your opponent the preflop raiser who will likely have a strong hand, because he raised preflop, will likely raise your lead.

Some players may call your lead hoping to draw out or to defend their marginal hand from your semi bluff and you can use the preflop raisers lead to charge them all a heavy price to continue against you. One crucial meta game concept is that you do not quite obviously separate your behavior on the strength of your hand; if you always check raise a strong hand and bet with a weak hand or bluff, your opponents will catch on quickly; rather I prefer a model where you play every hand almost the same, differing only where you fold (the stronger the later).

The great thing about playing big draws in this aggressive manner is it makes it much more difficult for your opponent to guess correctly whether he should back his one pair hand with his stack. If you have a set, and he calls, he's out a buy in. If you have a draw, and he folds, you win a significant amount of money without the potential for loss; and of course, it gives cover for the times you just try to take down a pot with nothing but piss and vinegar.