pushing with a flush draw

[hoyasaxa]

The following crazy hand occurred tonight at my home game.

Were playing pretty low stakes, .25/.50, sometimes live straddle.

MP limps, button raises to 2, small blind minraises to 4, MP calls, button calls.

Flop comes 4 4 J with two spades. SB bets 10, MP smooth calls, button pushes all in. He has both players covered, SB has about 40 left and MP has 19.

SB calls after a while and shows kings, MP folds AJ face up and button shows 9 10 of spades. Unrelated to this post, a spade hit on the turn, but a 3rd 4 fell on the river to give SB 4s full of kings and a (by our standards) huge pot.

The question is, how do we evaluate the buttons play? Do yoou think it is profitable in the long run? Or did he deserve to lose his money?

[mathemagician54]

shoving draws on paired boards is less good because if someone has trips or a set, your draw isn't as good as it looks.

[mvdgaag]

It'll cost you in the long run. If you have 14 outs or more you are a favorite to win. So if you have a good read that, for example, your overcards are good AND you have a flushdraw with both your hole cards, you'll have an easy push with 15 outs. With enough folding equity (which is nonexistant at uNL) pushing can get profitable with less outs.

GL

[eigenvalue]

The Buttons play is as terrible as it can be, because:
(1) A push with a flush draw makes sense if he has fold equity. It is obvious that this doesn't appear here.
(2) He is not drawing to the nut flush. If someone else has the nut flush draw, he has lots of dirty outs.
(3) The board is paired, this is huge disadvantage when drawing to a flush because someone with a set, trips can redraw.

[bbartlog]

Seems sort of -EV. Maybe not hugely so though. I don't think we can really say the fold equity is zero; there is the possibility of being called by both opponents (which should make our expectation positive most of the time); and as the hand actually played out, button was paying 40 to try and win a pot of 112. Close to even anyway. I don't hate it.

[PantsOnFire]

Shame on MP for cold-calling that reraise. And his flop call is not a smoothcall, it's a donk call. He leaves himself with $19 behind!! Now if he had JJ, that would be a smooooooothcall.

Here are the percentages heads up Button vs SB:

vs overpair - about 29-33%
vs JJ - almost dead
vs A4 - 28%
vs AsKs/AsQs - 19%
vs AsJ - 30%
vs two overcards (even if one is a spade) - 49-54%
vs 55-TT - about 50%

JJ is a low probability and a check/call might have been better by SB. Having 4 is unlikely so I'd discount that as well. Reraising with AJ out of position is also a dumb play so I would discount that as well. TT reraise is somewhat risky and if it I were to do it, I would certainly raise a lot more.

I would put SB most likely on a premium hand. An overpair would make that $10 bet and AK might, depending on SB and what he sees the other two players as. AsKs is the only real flush pair I see him holding, maybe AsQs, so losing to a better flush is unlikely although possible. The only decent fold equity I see is against AK (not AsKs). Button can't represent a 4 so overpairs are calling.

I have just discussed SB's hand. With that third player also still active and with perhaps an even wider range than SB, this can only be described as a horrible move. It's probably not even a good move if it was heads up against SB given his range.

The initial pot was $12.50 and now button is facing a $10 bet into a $32.50 pot and he will close the action and is in position. If there was ever a situation where a call would be a good play, this is it.

If that MP wasn't in the pot, a raise to $25 might have been a good play. You would find out if SB was serious and you might get a free river card.

As it turned out, if button call the flop and then goes all-in on the turn with his made flush, his success rate would be much higher.

Yikes!