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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Facing a Probable Flush In Position



Click on the "Play" button above to see a video replay of this hand, complete with audio narration. You can also full-screen the video by clicking the button in the bottom-right corner.

Hey guys. Today's hand deals with something that we all run into all of the time when playing online or in live games. It involves the infuriating reality of dealing with a probable flush when you're sitting on a decent hand in position. We'll use a ring game with $.25/$.50 stakes as an example. Let's take a look:
As you can see, we've got a decent hand, Ad Jh, in middle position, with no early position raises in sight. We're going to make a standard raise, about three or four times the big blind. Three other players behind us are going to call, making this a pretty decent-sized pot. Let's take a look at the flop:
What we see is a very painful sight: we've got our top pair and probably have the best hand right now, but there's also an obvious straight and flush possibility. The player in front of us in Seat 2 checks, and we make a bet, around $2.50 (but it could be larger if you really want to push them out.) Two players fold, but the player in Seat 2 calls.

This should immediately raise some red flags. Check-calling usually either indicates a slow play or a draw, and given the flop, we can safely put him on some kind of draw. Let's look at the turn:


Disaster! The straight AND the flush falls, making our hand kind of dead in the water. However, the player in front of us still checks, trying to display weakness. We're still very cautious about his hand's potential, so we'll check as well. Here comes the river:
See, now we've got a card that could give us some trouble. We've got two pair, and might reconsider our read given our strengthened hand. However, he goes from checking to making a large bet, $5.50. It may be very tempting to call, given that we've got top two pair and his check on the turn might mean that he's weak. However, this large bet on the river indicates that the player didn't want to scare you out of the hand by announcing his flush as soon as it fell. One of the most common ways to play a flush is to check when it lands and then try to make a large bet that may appear like a bluff on the river. Don't fall prey to his tricks. He's definitely got the flush.

How Would You Hold'em?
Even though we've got a decent hand, I'm folding in this situation every time.

See you next time!

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