[Jordan Olsommer]

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I am uncomfortable raising a flush draw because to me it is incongruent with a fundamental rule of poker. Bet/raise when you feel you have the best hand and fold when you think you are behind unless getting proper pot odds. We are raising with what is the worst hand at the moment so it's a tough concept to grasp.

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The distinction between "made hand" and "drawing hand" is completey nominal. What matters is how likely you are to win the hand (either to win at the showdown or by getting everyone to fold). A good example you may have seen is from the 2004 WSOP when Greg Raymer and Mike Matusow butted heads - Matusow had top pair with a pair of 9s and a 7 kicker, and Raymer had a flush draw with two live overcards. There Matusow had the "best hand" at the moment (the made hand) but Raymer was actually a favorite to win. You have to get your money in in these spots if you want to maximize your profits (as an aside, getting your money in with a drawing hand, even if it's a favorite, is great for future profits, since many people will see that and incorrectly assume you're some kind of donk who puts his money in with "nothing but a draw"). Another good example is in Phil Hellmuth's book "Bad Beats and Lucky Draws" (I think it's available for like $5 on amazon in the bargain bin or whatever - not a terribly wonderful book, but it's worth five bucks), where he describes an Omaha hand where the person in question had the stone cold nuts on fourth street but, because of the other players' hands, there was not a single card that could come on fifth street that wouldn't give someone a better hand - every card in the deck was a loser for him. I don't know about you, but I really wouldn't want to put in much money in that situation [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Now you would do well to ask about the (majority of) cases where you have a flush draw yet you're not the favorite to win the hand - why bet then? Firstly, there are times when it is mathetmatically correct to bet your flush draw, even though you are certain you don't have the best hand - it will be correct to bet because you will get so many callers that your bet serves to put an amount of money in the pot disproportionate to your chances of winning. You can look at it this way: say you're playing $1/$2 and you hypnotize the cardroom manager into reflexively tossing a bundle of $100 bills into the pot every time you bet on the flop - you'd start betting the flop with some pretty awful hands that barely had a chance to win, no? I know I would, because when you do finally get those running deuces or whatever you need to win, the payoff will be enormous.

That's exactly what you're doing when you bet a flush draw for value (eg against four opponents) - you're 2-to-1 to win, but every bet you make (if you know everyone will call) adds 4 more bets to the pot (so you're getting 4-to-1 on your money for each flop bet).

Also, there's the chance for a free card (check behind your opponents when they check to you to see the next card for free - you must be in last position for this) or to set up a semibluffing opportunity on fourth street, but the "betting flush draws for value" concept is probably the one you're having the most trouble with, seeing as how it is quite counterintuitive at first.

Hope that helps