Drawing for outs on the flop?

As I have been moving up and away from stict nut peddling, I have run into (or been faced with) numerous situations where I'm not sure what the best play on such flops are.

Basically, all the situations involve drawing for outs (not necessarily made hand) on the flop.

For example:

You hold A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 10/images/graemlins/spade.gif 7/images/graemlins/spade.gif in the CO.

In an unraised pot, 4 see the flop of J/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 8/images/graemlins/spade.gif 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif

Play has been pretty passive pre-flop and aggro post-flop at the table. EP1 checks, EP2 leads for the pot, MP folds and it is to you. Assume roughly equal 100BB stacks.

What is your play on the flop? Take a card off or muck and move on?

How much does your thinking change if you are EP2 with the same holding and an aggressive CO (last to act) pots it?

pretty hard for the 7 of spades to be in your hand and on the flop.

answer--fold you have nothing. No draws either.

[ QUOTE ]
pretty hard for the 7 of spades to be in your hand and on the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, I just fixed the flop.

[MattiasL]

What? You have nothing but a gutshot (no straight without a 9) and some backdoor flush and runner runner draw possibilities.

What are your thoughts here?

It may be a leak in my game, but at lower levels I'll call a pot sized bet to take a card off. I'm assuming a pot sized bet is about $1 to $2 and some donks are still in the hand who will pay me off if I hit. This is usually only a play I make in late position with known donks in early position. And the turn card better be near perfect.

I usually check-fold in EP if an agressive CO pots it because I don't want to face another pot size bet if the turn card provides some marginal help but not enough to call a second pot size bet.

OK, maybe I was unclear. I am thinking about places to pick spots for some loose gambling or potential steals. Obviously, in a raised pot, this would be extremely foolish, but was wondering about situations where the pot is small or the bet into the pot is small. (these are two somewhat different situations though, as pot odds will certainly be more favorable in the case of the latter.)

Maybe it all comes down to reads on opponents. If I know that the initial bettor is either a) extremely predictable or b) a habitual flop stealer, I was wondering what people thought of talking a card off in an attept to either gain equity or outplay the opponent.

Basically, situations where you feel you are not getting the proper odds in a pure math sense but still have significant potential for a win.

The hand I posted was made up in an attempt to highlight this question, but perhaps it was a bad example. For example, if EP2 is super tight (known folder) and generally only leads with a set in positions like this, does it ever make sense to take a card off and look for the diamond to increase equity or a straighting card with which to bully the villian out.

Or, in the case where EP2 habitually bets into shorthanded flops (with or without hands) to throw in a cold call to freeze and see what happens on the turn.

The more I think about it, the more loose-passive and probably donkish it sounds. It is more of a metagame question than a "proper" math question.

[joewatch]

Calling with a gutshot is -EV. Why bother with a 4 outer EVER when you can have 13 good outs or more with a nice wrap hand? Such is the beauty of Omaha, and why NLHE players switching to Omaha are major donators. You can win lots of hands by check-raising gutshots in NLHE, but in Omaha, you're going to run into the nuts or a big draw most of the time.

[MattiasL]

Ok, I see where you are coming from. In situations like this we do not need pot odds that are immediately favorable if we can count on
1. High implied odds (the opponent is loose and will often pay off when we hit). On the flop we "automatically" have great implied odds if we can get two sizeable bets in there. The chance that the opponent folds or splits/win the pot of course devalues this.
2. Bluff equity

In some situations this could be enough. But you should be able to find better situations than this. Even if you do not need to cover the direct pot odds, you should be able to find more than 4-6 effective outs with a lot of redraws/split possibilities.

[BluffTHIS!]

The better situation for calling with the intention of stealing is when there is a flush draw present and you have nothing other than a weak straight draw. Thus you count the flush outs as your steal outs (hoping he doesn't have a flush draw). But these types of things should only be done occasionally against tighter players headsup when you have position and both have large stacks. And if you are against someone only betting a draw and the board pairs, then you can often steal there as well.

If you do these kind of things too much though they will catch on and start checkraising you when they do make that flush or full even if it is only 2nd nuts.

[punter11235]

Instamuck.
I like BluffTHIS idea but I prefer to have at least lone A of trumps + weak str8 draw when setting up this play.

Best wishes

[Tilt]

If you are gonna call longshots on the flop, you need a few conditions to persist to make it profitable:

1) Your opponent will pay you off handsomely. At lower levels this happens often.

2) Your longshot draw is well disguised, so your opponent will have a hard time putting you on it.

3) If you hit, you will not get drawn out on very often.

4) You have reason to believe (or rather no reason to not believe) that your longshot outs are live.

I am not sure that any of these conditons exist in your example.

But here is a situation where this play is sometimes useful. Say in an unraised pot you have a QQxx in LP and see a flop of 997. The first raiser looks like he has 97 to you, and a caller has some 9 plus a few upper cards you think. If the stacks are deep, thats a situation where I sometimes take a card. You are about 1/20 to hit your Q for a price of perhaps 5BB, but hitting probably means 100BB - 200BB +. You will get paid if you hit and will almost never get redrawn. And then there will be lots of sloppy tilty play to follow after you hit a draw like this which is highly EV as well.

If he is thinking about bluff equity and such backdoor hands, why not re-3/4pot it and take a free card off on the turn- this will give u a better idea of how strong ur opponent is and will give u a chance to bluff @ it on turn or river. I do not think this is a good situation to make a "loose gamble" or anything like that because u have no information on the holding of ur opponent. Your opponent could be leading with a wrap and u could be playing into his hand. I think that the weakest hand someone leads here with is 2 pair. I think that if u reraise he might give u respect for better than 2 pair. However, if u hit ur 9, ur likely to get little money out of this pot because unless he has the nuts as well will shut down. So ur bluff outs are, Q, 10, 6, 7, 4, but a lot of these outs are going to be gone by other players and he might have a better SD here. I think if ur going to play it (which i wouldnt) I would reraise here and take control of the hand.