How to play this?

[72bluffer]

I had these situations come up yesterday in a no-limit tourney style home game, and realzied I am not entirely sure the best way to play it.

I am SB. Its the second hand of the game blinds are 10/20 ( started with 2500). I am delt 79o and I complete into an unraised pot. The flop is 6 8 K rainbow. I have an OESD, but now I am first to act.

The next time the BB gets to me (blinds still the same) I get K9s. I check an unrasied pot. Flop come As 3s 7h. So I have the nut flush draw. The SB did not complete, so again I am first to act.

What do you guys do in these situations?

(Note: Even though this happened in a tournament, I posted it here because I figured it would apply to ring games as well)

[PokerPatNEU]

Depending on how many people are in the pot with you still, i would probably check both. If you make a small bet and someone hit their K in the first situation or A in the second, you're probably going to get raised because you'll be put on the draw that you're on, or one of the lower pairs...If you check and someone bets after you, call or fold according to your pot odds. If your first to act on a OESD or the nut flush draw, i don't think you can go wrong checking it to feel out the other players hands. Hopefully you'll see a raise that will indicate the top pair, and enough callers to give you a good price to stay in the hand with your draw. Worst comes to worst here, you see a big raise and have to fold. You lost a small pot. If you bet and are re raised, you might have to let it go and you lost more than you had to.

[SteveO]

It depends on a lot of stuff.

How many people are in the hand and left to act after you?

What was the pre-flop action. I assume everyone limped and you saw a free flop from BB and a 1/2 price flop from the SB.

Are the remaining opponents passive or aggressive?

Being first to act, I would check those draws 8 out of 10 times against aggressive/solid opponents because you are likely to get reraised off the hand. I would also be inclined to call any reasonable bet up to the size of the pot due to the huge implied odds because you are drawing to the nuts, it's early in the tourny and the blinds are low relative to you stack so you can afford to chase a little early on in the hopes of catching and completely busting someone. If you miss, you move on with no significant harm to your stack. In fact, in both situations, at that stage in the game, unless someone overbets the pot, I am going to see at least one more card.

Against passive opponents, I'm more inclined to semi-bluff. Bet out up to 1/2 the pot. Presumably you will pick up a few callers and juice up the pot in the event that you do make you hand. It also throws off observant opponents and make it more difficult for them to put you on a hand in the future if the recognize your ability to semi-bluff. The semi-bluff also disguises the fact that you were drawing and increase the chance of a payoff in the event that you make your draw. Again, at this stage with passive opponents, you should try to see at least one more card unless someone wakes up and blasts you off the hand by overbetting the pot.

I would also note that the nut flush draw is a much better situation, as you may pick up someone with a worse flush draw with someting like J10s or some other lower suited connector. So the opportunity to get paid off or bust someone is a little better compared to the OESD.

In addition, if you semi-bluff, there is always the chance that everyone will fold and give you the pot anyway.

If you have some significant pre-flop action with a respectable raise, you should not have even seen the flop in the first place, but assuming you did you should check to the raiser and avoid throwing good money after bad.

Later in tournaments, in these situations it's a whole different ball game. If you catch a hand like that, it is often correct to just push AI if you have a BIG chip lead or a VERY short stack. If you are medium I would go the conservative route. If you have the BIG stack you can put alot of pressure on short stack and probably take down the pot and are unlikely to get called by anything but top pair, which you can bust if you make you hand. If you are very short stacked, again you are putting bad guys to a difficult decision and if you catch you will certainly double up.

[72bluffer]

There were 12 people playing but split up between 2 tables.
In both situatiosn. It was the same 3 people the hand. One is a calling station taht will saty in with anything suited or connected, and the other was a fairly good player, who limped in from the button. I didnt figure him for much because he usualy raise 3XBB when he has a good hand.

[sykotik489]

You answered your own question there. You cant semi bluff because the only reason to do that is if you are giving yourself more chances to win the pot (they fold) but if one of the guys is a calling station then wait to hit your hand.