Playing a Flush Draw Aggressively From Out of Position
This week's hand comes from early in a tournament — an example of defending the big blind when deep-stacked with a couple of suited cards, then negotiating what to do after flopping a desired flush draw.
The blinds were 25/50, and the hand started with a young player raising to 125 on the button. It folded to me in the big blind where like the raiser I had about 9,000 to start where I looked down at Q♣6♣.
As I discuss in the video below, I don't mind just folding here, although against a player who appears to have a wide range I'll typically call and see a flop with a suited hand like this one. (Three-betting wouldn't be out of the question, either.)
The flop comes pretty great for me — 10♣9♣3♦. I checked and my opponent bet 200, and I check-raised to 575. My opponent called, the turn brought the 10♦, and I had to decide whether to continue being aggressive in this spot.
Take a look and listen to why I think playing my flush draw from out of position aggressively makes sense here, and see what happens subsequently as well:
In general, the best draws to keep bluffing are the ones that lack showdown value, which is what we had here.
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,600,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
