TD27: Free plays from the big blind

[Siegmund]

Most the discussion/literature of the predraw round focuses on how good the various 3-card holdings are, and BB discussion is about which of the "bad" holdings are worth playing for half price in raised pots.

Here's a really basic question I don't recall seeing covered recently:

You are in the BB with awful cards, but get to play anyway. Is it better to - for instance, draw four to a 3, or three to an 8-3? Any rules of thumb for at what point one ugly draw becomes better than another?

I've just been going on instinct so far (three to 6-4 feels a lot better than four to 4, for instance) but 3 vs. 83 is a good example of one where I feel my instinct could easily be off 10% either direction.

[Alchemist]

This is something I've thinking about myself and would be interested to see what people say about it. One particular example I had in mind was if you're dealt 87654 in the BB and no one raised (say there's one limper and the SB completes then draws 3). Ditch the 7 only?

WRT your example with the 3 vs 83, my instinct tells me to draw 3 to the 83. But I don't have any hard data to back that up.

[MarkGritter]

2461Badugi yelled at me recently for drawing four to a 3 on a free look instead of three to a 36.

I think my chances of not making a mistake are increased by ditching the 6, even if it does decrease my showdown equity somewhat. If the pot is small, the showdown equity doesn't matter much.

[2461Badugi]

[ QUOTE ]

I think my chances of not making a mistake are increased by ditching the 6

[/ QUOTE ]

I was yelling at you at least as much for your later decisions in those same hands.

[tablecop]

I thought your answer to Sklansky's posited "what if i could get a 6 in every hand?" settled this. i.e. you said the percentage of hands that were playable with a fixed 6 was about the same as hands with 5 random cards but were rougher. so the 6 is a negative

i can't perceive the difference in the free look in BB, so keeping wheel cards and dumping the rest would seem to be optimal, no?

[Siegmund]

I think we would all agree to dump all five rather than draw four to a 6 from the BB -- but I am a lot less sure that drawing four to a small card is better than drawing three to a 26/36/46 combo.

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
I think we would all agree to dump all five rather than draw four to a 6 from the BB -- but I am a lot less sure that drawing four to a small card is better than drawing three to a 26/36/46 combo.

[/ QUOTE ]

I always wondered how much worse drawing 4 was than drawing 3. I mean it seems like it can't be on the same magnitude as drawing 2 versus drawing 1.