Worst Advice By An Expert In Print

[Al Mirpuri]

I would like to nominate Mike Caro - who I have a lot of time for. I think he is a genuine authority with a lot of subtle advice on offer. However, in his much under-rated tome, Caro's Fundamental Secrets Of Winning Poker, he suggests that in Five Card Draw you should not play open-ended straight draws because either you will not make them or you will make them and be beaten out of the pot by flush draws that got there. I did the calculations for this. Having a straight draw up against a flush draw, and having both hit, the odds are astronomical. You are more likely to see a cigar act in the Oval Office. Poor advice. Play your four straights, if you've got the pot/implied odds.

[Vehn]

Based on what? As an absolute guess, I would estimate that the odds of you making an open ended straight draw while someone at a loose 8 handed table makes a 4 flush to be about 30-50:1. This based on my playing experience and general card knowledge only.

[Clarkmeister]

The all time worst has got to be Cloutier and McEvoy saying in limit holdem they'd rather play their 78 offsuit than suited because they can get into too much trouble when they make a non-nut flush.

[Al Mirpuri]

The first parlay required is that of a four straight being dealt alongside a four flush in a single deal. The odds of being dealt a four straight are 1/6, whilst it is 1/23 for a four flush, giving 1/6 x 1/23= 1/138.

The second parlay needed is that of both hands filling simultaneously. The chance of filling your open-ended four straight is 8/47, whilst the chance of filling a four flush is 9/47, this gives 82/2207. You will both fill 3.71545% of the time. Let us round this up to 1/25. This is the second step of the equation.

The third step is to multiply 1/138 by 1/25, giving us 1/3450.

So, Mike Caro is asking us not to play open-ended four straights because of a 1/3450 danger of making our hand and not having it stand up. A little too cautious, methinks.

[Wake up CALL]

If I remember correctly he adds the caveat (which you left out) that you will not get paid off when you bet your one card draw and the flush draw misses but will lose two bets when they hit. This makes it a no-brainer and pretty solid advice if you are familiar with 5 card draw. Also I believe he at least infers that this is only against another 1 card draw.

Of course Mike supposedly lost his butt at 5 card draw in Gardenia so what do I know! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Vehn]

[ QUOTE ]
The odds of being dealt a four straight are 1/6, whilst it is 1/23 for a four flush

[/ QUOTE ]

This makes no logical sense at all.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Al:

Your logic is flawed, and I don't think that you have played much draw poker. You're looking at the hand from the start, not from when you might make the decision.

In jacks-or-better draw poker (played with a joker) drawing hands can't come in until there is an opener. Since the opener is most likely in from a late position (due to sandbagging and weaker opening requirements) it's often pretty clear that there are other draws out, which usually means flush draws. So the decision is often whether to play a straight draw given that flush draws are already in.

Furthermore, you should only look at the decision from the point of view that you make your straight. When that's the case, does the flush draw hurt you. The answer is yes since he'll be getting proper pot odds on his draw. In addition, draw poker, unlike games like hold 'em, is a game of relatively small pots. That means without the flush draw in there your hand is only marginally correct. Now add in the flush draw, and it can swing it to a fold.

By the way, if you hold the joker, and now have either a 12 or 16 way hand, that can also change things to a call.

Best wishes,
Mason

[baggins]

Hellmuth's new book gives a list of ten hands (if i recall, in this order: AA KK QQ AK JJ TT 99 AQ 88 77). he says these are the top starters in HoldEm, in that order, and that you should play *only* them in NL games. of course, he's talking to beginning players. but still. that's a little tight, methinks. can you win in NLHE playing only those hands against thinking opponents? won't they stop putting money in the pot once they figure out this strategy (which won't take too long)?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Baggins:

I thought this advice came from his beginner chapter in his limit section.

best wishes,
Mason

[nicky g]

The whole problem assumes you already have a straight draw. You can't ask "what are the chances that both a straight draw and a flush draw will be dealt in one deal?" That's irrelevant. You have to ask now that I've got my straight draw, what are the chances that someone else has is drawing to a flush, and proceed from there.

For a similar example, imagine you are playing heads up NL against a solid opponent and and are dealt pocket kings. You raise, get reraised, reraise, and he goes all-in. It looks like he has aces, and you wonder what the chance of his being dealt aces are. Now the chances of someone being dealt aces and their opponent kings in a single deal in a heads up game are pretty low; at a (total) guess, around 5000-1. But you can't say well it's 5000-1 against that he would have been dealt aces, because (ignoring the fact that other information - ie his betting - says he does have aces), you know the kings have been dealt. There's 100% chance you've been dealt kings; the only question is what are the chances the opponent has been dealt aces on that deal, which are the same as they always are (well slightly better, as 2 non-ace cards have already been accounted for), around 220-1.

Similarly taking a bomb on an aeroplane won't reduce the chance that someoneon else will bring a bomb on-board, despite the fact that it's incredibly unlikely that two people will independently bring bombs aboard the same plane.