Stud/8: Live Flush Draw with a Brick in the Door

[AlanBostick]

You're playing in a $20-$40 high-low seven-card stud with an eight qualifier for low. Antes are $3 each, and low card brings it in for $5, completing the bet on third makes it $20 to go. You don't have to worry about Southern-California-style action bets in this game.

The 3[img]/forums/images/icons/club.gif[/img] brings it in for $5. The Q[img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img], and 6[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] all fold, and the action is on you. You've got the 2[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] and 3[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] down and the K[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] in the door. Yet to act are, in order, the 7[img]/forums/images/icons/club.gif[/img], the J[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img], and the 4[img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img]. All of the players yet to act, as well as the bring-in, are reasonably solid players who grasp the essentials of stud/8.

Your choices are to complete the bet to $20, to limp in for $5, or to fold your hand.

The argument for limping is that a live flush draw with two low cards, while playable, is not very strong, and you'd like to see how well you catch on fourth street for as cheaply as possible. Also, limping makes it more likely that more players will trail in after you, sweetening the pot should you make a hand.

But there is an argument for completing the bet here: In this spot with a hand like (2[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] K[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img])K[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] I would almost certainly make it $20 to go, hoping to get head-up with a single low draw. If I limp with my flush draw, my opponents will know that I don't have a pair of kings ... and that means that by far the most likely hand for me to have is a flush draw with two low cards. Raising to $20 plausibly disguises my hand, and it will make it rather easily to take the pot down with a bet on fourth street if my opponent(s) brick up.

Which costs me more: the extra money I put into the pot by completing to $20, or the knowledge of my hand I give to my opponents by limping?

Is this dilemma troubling enough to justify a fold in this spot? (This would imply that the only live flush draws that include a brick that I would play would have low cards in the door.)