Play draws as fast as sets

Around this forum I read quiet a few times one should play your draws as fast as you play sets. (betting and raising them on the flop)

But isn't this a bit contradictive?

As far as I know, we should play this way because our draws have the most FE then. But lets say we have the same board, same villain who has the same hand. By playing our set the same way, we have the same FE, but now for our set...and we don't want a fold with a set.
So yes, it gives our draws the most FE, but our sets aren't getting paid of.

After a while people will call you down lighter, because they realise you play your draws this fast. So your sets will get paid of better, but on the other hand your draws are getting called down lighter too...which is really bad.

Ofcourse a lot of other factors are important and we shouldn't make a play JUST because it's a draw or a set. But as it is stated pretty often that playing draws as fast as sets is profitable, because it gives the most FE and gets sets paid off....I'd like to discuss the downsides of this play too.

This only applies against villains who are paying attention and making an effort to adjust.

Against someone who will always call, push your sets and check your draws.

Against someone who will always fold, push your draws and hope he bluffs when you have a set.

Against someone who is a little better than that and is actually trying to put you on a hand, playing a draw like a set puts them in a tough spot.

If they have a hand like top pair then they know that if they call you they will be either slightly behind to a draw or WAY behind to a set. It makes it much harder for them to make the right decision. You still have to keep adjusting your game to your image though. If youve recently been caught pushing a draw then be less likely to do it again, and more likely to push a set in the same way. If someone just stacked off to you when you had a set then consider taking the same line with a draw. etc. etc. etc.

aggression > passivity
Also, look up fnords post on implied threat and understand its fundamental concept, then you'll see why we raise.

Or more simply, what does raising with a set/draw acheive and what do we gain from that...

minSim: You've made some excellent points. I think the advice holds true in a vacuum, but once you have reads on your opponents and have built an image, you weight your play accordingly. For example, I built a laggy/spewy image at 200NL FR such that regulars didn't give me credit for hands and would automatically assume I was on a draw when I pushed a drawy board. So of course I didn't push draws against them unless there was a lot of dead money, but I pushed sets like crazy.

i think the answer to this question is to do with game theory. it is mentioned in the theory of poker by sklansky.

in the chapter, "game theory and bluffing", it explains that bluffing occasionally is more profitable than never bluffing or bluffing a lot. and not just because of deception. it would be more profitable even if your opponent knew exactly what percentage of the time you are going to bluff and not bluff.
sklansky gives some examples and explains it brilliantly in his book. maybe someone else can explain it for you.

i think betting the draws the same as your sets is probably to do with this.

personally, i rarely play my draws like i play my sets. i wont checkraise with my draw oop although i will checkraise my set oop often. and in position i wont usually raise with my set unless i would usually raise. and i will raise with my sets in position depending on the situation.
if i flop a monster draw (open str flush draw or better), i will play it as aggressively as possible (but you dont hit too many monster draws).

i think the advice posted above. i havent heard of players suggesting to play draws the same way as sets. can you give me a link to where it's mentioned.

also, i don't think it's a good idea to play so aggro with draws at low stakes. players call you down way too easy. at higher stakes it might be a good idea.

also, as mentioned above a lot of players don't take much notice and also, not many players know how you play your sets.

if i'm not the pf agg and i'm oop i will nearly always cr to approx 3x my opponents cbet if i flop a set. i also occasionally make a complete bluff like this (no draw at all) if i think there is a good chance my opponent is cbetting with air or i think my oppnent will fold a better hand.

1 more point: by raising or cring with your draws you may be forced to fold your draw if your opponent comes over the top of you again. this is 1 of the mian reasons i won't raise with my draws. i will however bet my draws often.

also, you get open str draws and flush draws a lot more than you hit your sets - so playing your draws so aggro everytime is probably not a good idea because people will start to see your raising and cring with worse hands and youll start loosing a lot of money when they come over the top again. youll make it back on your occassional set if this does happen - but i think youll loose way too much with your draws to make up for it

Thx for the good comments.

I think Pelion said it nicely with:

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Against someone who will always call, push your sets and check your draws.
Against someone who will always fold, push your draws and hope he bluffs when you have a set.
Against someone who is a little better than that and is actually trying to put you on a hand, playing a draw like a set puts them in a tough spot

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Pokerroomace, I appreciate your reply, but there are a few thing I don't really agree with:

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i think the advice posted above. i havent heard of players suggesting to play draws the same way as sets. can you give me a link to where it's mentioned.

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If you're really interested, I coud look up some handhistories on the forum for you. But betting/raising your draws is a pretty standard play, you can go to the handhistories section and find a lot of examples.

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also, i don't think it's a good idea to play so aggro with draws at low stakes. players call you down way too easy. at higher stakes it might be a good idea.

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I totally agree with the low stakes statement.

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more point: by raising or cring with your draws you may be forced to fold your draw if your opponent comes over the top of you again. this is 1 of the mian reasons i won't raise with my draws. I will however bet my draws often

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Isn't the intention of betting/raising (besides FE) draws to get it all-in on the flop, either by calling or pushing yourself?


I'm playing the lower limits (25NL atm), and the games are reeeally passive. On the other hand, people aren't folding TP against serious agression either.
It's common to just get odds to draw, so I usually I take them. Sets aren't very often getting paid...and there are a lot of short stacks....so set hunting isn't very profitable. It's a boring stake tbh, just wait for some big broadways, big PP's, or hit your draw you get odds for and get paid a bit.

But I have taking some shots at 50NL recently, and the agression went up big....which confused me. So I'm trying to get my fundamentals and thinking straight before going up again and taking a serious shot.


If anyone could comment about calling Axs in position, that would be cool.
I read a thread on 2+2 once, about a guy calling with it preflop and he gets flamed about how bad that call was....but all the regulars said it was good. Is it any good with 100BB? What is the reasoning behind playing it?

Axs plays well multiway, it doesnt play so great HU in raised pots when you expect your opponents to have you reverse dominated a lot.

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Originally Posted by minSim

Pokerroomace, I appreciate your reply, but there are a few thing I don't really agree with:

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i think the advice posted above (edit:) is good. i havent heard of players suggesting to play draws the same way as sets. can you give me a link to where it's mentioned.

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If you're really interested, I coud look up some handhistories on the forum for you. But betting/raising your draws is a pretty standard play, you can go to the handhistories section and find a lot of examples.

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yes. could you give me some examples.

this link discusses game theory and bluffing:
http://poker.oddschecker.com/poker-f...er-game-theory

here's another link (i haven't read it, but i think it's relevant):
http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/037.html

i think this might be the root of playing draws the same as sets advice.

A potentially results-oriented comment, but nothing bums me more than betting my set and getting 2-3 folds. I'm more likely to bet draws with a couple players when I'm OOP, than I do c/c or c/r sets. Takeing control of the hand seems to pay dividends more often than not.

Sometimes I'll c/c flop with a draw, and raise the turn, and get tons of folds HU. When I get called, and hit my card on the river, I can quite often get paid on my value bet.

everyone seems to be overloking the fundamental question of what raising actually does and why we do it.

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Originally Posted by minSim

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more point: by raising or cring with your draws you may be forced to fold your draw if your opponent comes over the top of you again. this is 1 of the mian reasons i won't raise with my draws. I will however bet my draws often

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Isn't the intention of betting/raising (besides FE) draws to get it all-in on the flop, either by calling or pushing yourself?

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I think this is the last thing you want to do with most draws as you won't be getting sufficient pot odds to do this heads up, unless you have some sort of monster 15 out draw. A standard FD or OESD has 8 or 9 outs meaning you need at least 2 other players all in with you on the flop. The whole point of raising is to add folding equity to your pot odds, you want them to fold, but if they do call you still have some outs.


Am I correct?

With a set you want your opponents with draws to get it in on the flop, they won't have pot odds for it and you'll win in the long run. The whole point of playing a set fast is to try to get your whole stack in at some point, if a weak tight player has 1 pair you're probably not going to stack him but you still need to make a sufficiently big bet on the flop to enable your turn and river bets to get your whole stack in (hopefully) before he realises he's beat.
Checking the flop, then making a small bet on the turn and river for value doesn't have the highest expectation.


I'm still trying to get this part of my game worked out so if you don't agree with me i'd appreciate the discussion.

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Originally Posted by Legendash

Am I correct?

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Yes. It also trashes your image relatively cheaply against observent players who will be more willing to get allin with you next time you flop a set on a textured flop.

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Originally Posted by Legendash

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Originally Posted by minSim

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more point: by raising or cring with your draws you may be forced to fold your draw if your opponent comes over the top of you again. this is 1 of the mian reasons i won't raise with my draws. I will however bet my draws often

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Isn't the intention of betting/raising (besides FE) draws to get it all-in on the flop, either by calling or pushing yourself?

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I think this is the last thing you want to do with most draws as you won't be getting sufficient pot odds to do this heads up, unless you have some sort of monster 15 out draw. A standard FD or OESD has 8 or 9 outs meaning you need at least 2 other players all in with you on the flop. The whole point of raising is to add folding equity to your pot odds, you want them to fold, but if they do call you still have some outs.


Am I correct?

With a set you want your opponents with draws to get it in on the flop, they won't have pot odds for it and you'll win in the long run. The whole point of playing a set fast is to try to get your whole stack in at some point, if a weak tight player has 1 pair you're probably not going to stack him but you still need to make a sufficiently big bet on the flop to enable your turn and river bets to get your whole stack in (hopefully) before he realises he's beat.
Checking the flop, then making a small bet on the turn and river for value doesn't have the highest expectation.

I'm still trying to get this part of my game worked out so if you don't agree with me i'd appreciate the discussion.

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Miffed keeps hammering on the fundamentals of why we raise, so I give it a shot, cause maybe I'm wrong there already.

I'd say we raise good hands (i.e. sets), because we have the best hand and want value for it from weaker hands. And that also means letting hands that are drawing to better hands then ours pay enough for it so that they won't make money from us in the long run.

And the reason we should play draws the same way is the combination of FE + value when we hit our draw......together that makes this play the most +EV.

Those are the thoughts I have in mind...these are correct, right?

Let's take a very common example:
100BB deep, 4BB raise PF, we call with 89s.
Flop Axx, we have the flush draw, in position. Villain bets potsize...
Hero?

1. We can fold; we don't know if we have enough implied odds and we don't have pot odds.
2. We can call; it's a high price because if villain bets turn we have to fold.
3. We can raise; is villain folding TP?
If hero calls, how often do we get a free card if turn blanks?
Are we getting much from villain if our flush hits?

3a. What if villain comes over the top; do we call?(odds), push? (it's getting in anyway, but we don't have FE anymore)

renton once posted that you always have enough implied odds to call a potsize bet on the flop with a flush draw...
i pretty much agree.

what your missing on raising is that when ever you raise a pot on thr flop or turn you are thretening opponents stack. In essence you are saying that your opponents stack is on the line as we're getting it all in.
Its about pot building. Of course you can raise flop and take a free turn card when you need it or make a trap check with a set to shove it all in on the river etc

by raising you use your positional advantage to force your opponent to play big pots with what are often only tp hands. On sites where players are weak tight raising makes them run so fast they cant fold AA fast enough. On other sites, you get nice odds to call and get called when you hit and shove the river.

Hero needs to know what exactly he is doing versus specific opponents and how he can do it. As a rule of thumb i raise versus good players and call versus bad players as bad players will take hands too far anyway because ZOMG I HAVE TP WITH QUEEN KICKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww in baby!!!!!! :)

game theory, gotta balance so opponent cant play optimal

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Originally Posted by gabe

game theory, gotta balance so opponent cant play optimal

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yes! boobooboo. 3 hi flush!

gabe u made my day