Flush draws: When to keep going and when to give them up?

[Roland]

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Hey Roland - old buddy old pal.

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Hey lstream, you loose-goose. How are ya?

[SGspecial]

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Also besides killing pot odds with a raise

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You should totally not be concerned about pot odds in this situation. You should be concerned with your, in most cases, enourmous equity edge and therefore pour as many chips into the pot as you can.

Put money in the pot while you're ahead...

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Why exactly are we ignoring pot odds? Obv if you're in the lead in pot equity, getting more money in the middle is a good objective, but it's a very cavalier attitude to discount the size of the pot in any spot. It should help you decide your best action, and help thinking opponents decide their actions, and thus your read on their likely actions, etc.

Besides, comments like that might actually bring DS back to the stud forum so he can give you a verbal lashing.

[Roland]

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Why exactly are we ignoring pot odds? Obv if you're in the lead in pot equity, getting more money in the middle is a good objective, but it's a very cavalier attitude to discount the size of the pot in any spot. It should help you decide your best action, and help thinking opponents decide their actions, and thus your read on their likely actions, etc.

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I didn't say, ignore the size of the pot - as you correctly point out, pot size is always important (e.g. 'hey this pot is HUGE, I think the players behind me are calling two cold, let's raise...').
But to think of your hand as a drawing hand that needs the correct pot odds to continue, or to even be concerned with killing pot odds is just wrong.

[Wahoo73]

Despite trying several suggestions made in this thread, my session last night at FTP was more of the same losing I've been experiencing for the last two months. I played a combination of LHE and stud. Stud consisted of 164 hands of $.50/1 and $1/2 stud. I saw 4th street 45 times (28%). This included 5 times I was BI and it was limped around. So I manually calculated my VPIP as 24%. My two best completed hands of the night both lost at showdown...a K hi straight I made on 5th street and pumped aggressively, and trip Ks I also made on 5th street and bet aggressively. I made no flushes or boats during the session. I had a total of 11 hands go to showdown and only one of them won i.e., trip 7s made on 4th street that were concealed by my pocket pair. (Although these did include three hands that were "checked-down" from 5th street on, winning only 9% of showdowns is truly dreadful.) The rest of my hands that I took to showdown and lost with were trips (1), two pairs (5), and unimproved As or Ks (2).

As for flush draws, eight times I was dealt a three-flush to start. Two of those times I judged the flush draw to be dead since there were three other door cards of my suit showing and I folded on 3rd street. Of the six remaining three-flushes, I bricked on 4th street twice and two more cards of my suit appeared in opponents' hands, so I folded. Of the four remaining hands, I hit my suit card on 4th street three times and either raised or bet. On subsequent streets, I either bet or called all three of these hands to the river but did not complete on any of them and subsequently folded. The other hand I bricked on 4th street, but because none of my suit cards were visible on board I continued to 5th street, where I hit my suit card and played this hand to the river. Again, it did not complete and I folded. (This one was particularly frustrating inasmuch as there were three opponents in the hand until 5th street and two of them continued to the river, and during the entire hand only one card of my flush-draw suit appeared anywhere on the board.)

Final tally: 0 for 6 on playable three-flushes; 0 for 4 on playable four-flushes; out of nearly $60 total lost for the session, I lost $23.25 on these eight flush draw hands alone.

I realize that by itself this is a small sample size, but this is very typical of the vast majority of my stud sessions during the last two months insofar as losing in general, and lack of success and high cost of flush draws specifically.

Despite all of your good suggestions and advice, I have concluded that the only real solution to my problem is to start getting good cards...and soon!

[DMSNI]

Play on the fun tables till your cards warm up again.

[SGspecial]

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Play on the fun tables till your cards warm up again.

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This is kind of like telling someone whose stocks have just taken a nosedive "cash out your holdings and reinvest when they go back up." If they were good stocks in the first place, they will rebound and you don't want to miss it.

[DMSNI]

"This is kind of like telling someone whose stocks have just taken a nosedive "cash out your holdings and reinvest when they go back up." If they were good stocks in the first place, they will rebound and you don't want to miss it."

After I get a pair of aces I leave the real money tables and play 70 or so hands on play money, then come back to the real money for when my aces are due again. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[SGspecial]

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"This is kind of like telling someone whose stocks have just taken a nosedive "cash out your holdings and reinvest when they go back up." If they were good stocks in the first place, they will rebound and you don't want to miss it."

After I get a pair of aces I leave the real money tables and play 70 or so hands on play money, then come back to the real money for when my aces are due again. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Even better, you should try this with rolled up trips which come up every 400 or so hands (or if you play razz, every 27 hands)

[Wahoo73]

Don't play them! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Last night I had a short session at FTP and played 91 hands of 1/2 stud. I actually had one of my few winning sessions in the last two months and I did not have ANY playable flush draws beyond 3rd street. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]