Playing Draws on Front Door Boards

This is the free version of the Crush Live Poker subscription podcast. If you enjoy this audio format of poker training and want to hear more complete episodes, check out our membership options at crushlibepoker.com. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Crush Live Poker Podcast. I'm your host here, Bart Hansen. Today's episode here for February 20th, 202 5 is again three ways, and you'll understand why I named this episode that title when we get into some of the hands. Had a kind of a fun session, went in extra early and played some one three and played some two five and we're gonna take a look at a couple of hands too that I played at one three at nine in the morning. I went in there and it was the earliest I've played I don't know. I even tweeted about this too. I got in at like 8 55 AM in Encore. The thing was was that they didn't start the 2-5 game actually until 10 a.m. So I got an opportunity to play 1-3 for an hour. Now I've played 1-3 here and there. It's one three five hundred max buy-in game here and there at the encore. Usually I just pass and I've got other things to do. I can sit on their couches that they have around here and there and do some work. But I knew the two five game was not going to start from what it looked like until 10 a.m. And I only definitely had a fixed amount of time to play. Like I had to get out of there by like 330, 345. So it's like, okay, let me hop in the one three game. There were three games going. Now, the thing about early morning games sometimes is that you can get a game that's been going like overnight. I will say I made a joke about it on Twitter that I'm I was there to crush the OMCs. The OMCs have nothing. They haven't they ain't seen nothing yet. As I was about to sit down at nine in the morning. But the 1-3 game actually had a fair amount of action in it, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, we saw I I saw some pretty, I would say tight stuff, but it was a better game than the 2-5 game that I eventually moved to. I mean, obviously it's smaller, so I would win more money per hour at the two five game, but it wasn't like the worst one three game. I mean there's never a bad one three game, but if you are playing the sort of the small stakes game in the room, and there's a bunch of people that are really, really short, and they're playing like 20 or 25% of hands, like your stereotypical old man coffee type game early in the morning. It's probably going to be hard to overcome like a ten percent up to ten dollar rake right like that they have it encore i mean you might be able to make dollars an hour but my point was was that in this game with this particular the way that this game was actually playing it wasn't a bad game. And I actually have two hand s that I want to talk about. One is just a sort of kind of funny hand, although it does prove a point. And then another hand where I I've talked about this in the past many, many times , in terms of bl you know, going for a straight draw on a front door flushing board. And sometimes that can be the best of both worlds because you can get paid when you make your straight and then if the flush comes in you will actually get credit and you have a bunch of fold equity. So let's take a look at this first hand here. So I this hand is actually in the notes . The primary villain in the hand was only $285 deep, so that is what I'm putting down as the effective stack. This is hand number one. And the blinds were one three, but we had a straddle less hand. So there was a straddle less hand, it was one three plus six. I pick up Pocket Kings. This is probably one of the first few hands that I've played the entire time. I mean I sat down and yeah, this is like the second hand that I played. I've got uh King of Spades, King of Clubs, and I raise it up to twenty because it's one three six. Guy to my left, like from plus one, he makes the call. It's like a mixture of different stacks. This button , who basically has 500, so him and I have the same amount, which is the maximum in the game, he three bets to 60. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting because I've got a guy that flatted to my left, and then somebody's three betting, because you don't typically think about somebody like three bet squeezing all that light at one three. I mean, of course I was always going to four-bet, like as an absolutely mandatory forebet. And then it gets around to the small blind who's only sitting with two eighty-5, and he cold four bets to 200. Now, it's not like there's these guys like are all drinking beers or anything like that. It's I was saying that it was a decent game because like there was a lot of limping and stuff, but it's not like one of these things where it was like an overnight game where ever ybody was drunk. I mean, this was me opening in a straddle pop, by the way, which means it was double the stakes, a flat, a three bet, and then the small blind cold four-betting to 200 off of a 285 stack. So he didn't move all in. He just raised like two thirds of his stack, breaking the threshold, right? Like that small stakes exploit breaking the threshold. The thing about this that was so first of all, off the uh I'm gonna tell you off the cap. Like, I'm not folding Pocky Kings in a one-three game, but I kind of laughed inside a little bit because I was like, this is really interesting because whenever you see somebody on a short stack make a move like this and put in like two thirds of their stack but not go all in, it looked really, really strong. And what I've spoken about in the past is that and it's usually referring to things that actually happen post-flop. Like, say for example, a guy is like $300 deep and you're playing like let's say I think this went down at commerce one time. Guy had like $400 and like he limped in and I had aces and I raised and got in the big blind called and a limper called. And the board came out like eight, six, seven or something like that. And it got checked over to me. And like I made a C bet , I don't know, for like, I mean, this was probably 10 years ago, right? Like to forty five or something, say like in a hundred and five dollar pot. You know, the guy in the big blind folded and this guy like raises it to like one ten , you know, off of like three hundred dollar stack or something ridiculously stupid. Actually, it might have gotten like bet. I bet the guy in the big blind calls. And then like he makes like a 3x race, basically committing half of his stack off the short stack. Anytime you see somebody on the short stack make a raise that commits like half their stack in a situation like that, it is very, very scary because if they were on some sort of draw, they would just basically move all in. Which is the whole concept too with the with the pre-flop thing with breaking the threshold. Like that guy's supposed to just move all in. The fact that he went to 200 off a 285 stack from a cold forbid, uh, it wasn't surprising what ended up happening, which is obviously I shoved over the top of him. I wasn't a full pocket kings in a one-three game. And everybody else folded and he called and he had aces. And the funny thing is is that uh the board came out with two aces. He actually made four aces, but there was no high hand. So I'm like, oh that's just great. You know, like I tweet out about like I'm gonna cross the UMCs at 857 and then at 9.02 AM put a picture of it too. I run Kings into aces. Well, I guess it's better to run Kings into Aces at one three versus like at five ten. You know what I mean? So there was that hand. And then, I mean, here's the thing about like one three, right? Like I had played the hand before where I had opened ace 10 offsuit, literally the first hand I played. And then a guy to my left, I think I was under the gun, a guy to my left three bet me to three X and I just folded. I'm like, it's a one-three game. And then I had this hand where I had kinks. So I played those two hands and I literally didn't play another hand, I think, maybe until like the two five game opened up like almost an hour later. And it was, I mean, I had a bad distribution of cards, but you know, we're not really deep enough to call people's raises. Especially if it's a straddled pot at one three. And, you know, you guys know what I'm talking about. Like it takes a very, very special situation to over limb in a game like that with shorter stocks when the rake is going to be ten dollars. So this is what I'm talking about just as empirical evidence when I always try to like encourage people to move up to like the $5 blind level. Because if you are going to play the lowest level the best possible way, like at the map for the maximum win rate, it is going to be boring. And it is going to be and you are gonna be playing super duper tight. By the way, the guy, if you caught the Crush Live Collins video or from the Collins show from like two weeks ago, Jay, that used to work at the Encore, who was making a go out of it at 1-3 . One of the first things he told me after he called in two weeks ago was that his buddy had listened to our interview and spoken to him like right afterwards and said, Jay, you're out of your mind. You don't play 30% of your hands. He definitely apparently does not play 30% VPIP like he said. I was shocked when he said, oh, I play 30% VP. I'm like, 30%? Thats sound insane. And in all reality, like it could be very usually could be should be like 15% or something like that. I played Ace 10 offsuit, I played Pocket Kings, and I literally didn't play another hand, almost for the next hour. For the most part, I'm talking about. And then I played for the next hour right before I moved over to 2-5. In fact, the game had been called. So they were about to start the game at 2-5. And this is kind of a cool hand at 1-3 . You know, it just similar situation. It was actually against the guy that had aces against my kings. Very same guy. And this particular hand was not straddled, so it's one three, four hundred and seventy dollars effective. Under the gun raises to fifteen. The primary villain from plus one, he makes the call. I'm on the button with Queen Jack offsuit and I actually overcall. Now, I just said that I hadn't played a hand for an hour. And you're like, whoa, you're overcalling here with Queen Jack offsuit. Is this probably is this slightly like a losing call? Yeah, probably. I think you could make a case here that this probably should be a fold, I would say. I just like Queen Jack even better than sometimes like King Jack and like Jack 10 and things like that. I think I. mean, usually it's with people say like it's it it's driving the hand. Like Queen Jack suited is one of my favorite hands to drive because of the barreling equity. Well, but of course when you're calling off suit with it, it's not quite as good. But I didn't play knot hand in an hour, and I decided to make the call and we went three ways. Three ways to the flop. Uh it was forty five dollars in the pot. And uh we were four hundred and seventy dollars effective. That was my effective stack because you know I, had topped off a little bit, but I was slightly less than what the cap was. So the board comes out, ten of hearts, nine of hearts, deuce of clubs. Ten of hearts, nine of hearts, deuce of clubs. So I flop open-ended. I've got the Queen of Hearts in my hand. Under the gun bets 15. Now this was a the under the gun guy was the same guy that initially had three bet me in the hand with the Kings versus Aces, right? When I went 20 call, he goes to 60, and then the other guy four bets and he gets out of there. He inevitably he actually moved over to 2-5 and then he moved over to 510. I didn't know anything really about the guy, but he was kind of using pretty small sizing from what I was ex expecting to see, you know, at one three, like guys blasting the pot and things like that. So he bets fifteen. Plus one, the primary villain raises to seventy. So it goes fifteen plus ra1ises to 70. I'm over here on the button. I'm like, all right, so plus one most likely has a hand, and it's probably a pretty strong hand. It could be a set. It could be a hand like 10, 9, something like that. But I thought that this might be a decent spot to make a call and represent the front door flush if it came in and get paid off if the straight came in. Now, with one big caveat, usually the best time to do this is when you're against somebody that's basically not announcing their hand as two pair plus. Like you do it against somebody who's like maybe the pre-flop raise or like in a single single raise plot or somebody who's a field better, not a bet and a raise. The reason why it's different with the bet and raise is because if it's a bet and a raise, the guy probably is going to have two pair plus or he's actually going to have some sort of combo draw, which is what I was about to represent. So take that for a little bit of a caveat. So this hand is a little bit already out to left field when I call pre-flop. And now a little bit dicey for me to flat here saying, oh, I'm going to represent the front door heart and get like get credit when the guy's basically announcing that he's got two pair plus . Plus, the pre-flop razor still has , I mean, he's behind. I mean, I don't think that he's gonna like do anything crazy like three bet shove, but he's still that. So I make the call, but the pre-flop razor gets out of the way. So it goes 15 plus one to 70. I call with Queen Jack off suit with the Queen of Hearts, Ten of Hearts, Nine of Hearts, Deuce of Clubs, Preflow Braiser Folds. And now the pot's 200 bucks. The turn's the seven of clubs. So it's ten of hearts, nine of hearts, deuce of clubs, and the turn is the seven of c lubs. It puts a backdoor flush dra out there. And now plus one bets a hundred. And I was like, oh that's kind of interesting. It's not less than it's not like same bet, like when somebody raises and like bets less, but I was actually expecting him to kind of like pound it a little bit harder. And I'm looking at this, I'm like, I'm getting like three to one right now. Now, what are my true outs? There really is only eight true outs here. And you could even make a case when say that it's really six. I mean I've got a straight draw, but some of the straight draws are going to come in as hearts, meaning maybe, you know, maybe it's a little bit less likely that I'm going to get paid off. Six like off suit flashing cards, but maybe like eight eight cards to make my hand. Yeah, 45 on scene cards. What is that? Like one out of five and a half. I need to make four point five to one off the bat size. Did I have a one and five and a half chance of hitting? So the way that I look at this is can I make four hundred and fifty dollars from the total pot? Well, if he's betting a hundred into two hundred, I'm pot's three hundred. How much more do I need to make if I hit my hand on the river? I only need to make 150 more. I'm already making 300. And if I call, the pot's going to be 400. This is actually one of the small small stakes exploits too that people undervalue or tend, yeah, they tend to undervalue their draws. They don't understand quite the math of draws here. Like facing a half pot size bet, even with an eight-out draw, with like having less than 20% to even get there. I still only need to bet less than half the pot size on the river if I make my hand to make the call profitable. Because he's betting 100 into 200. So the pot's 300, 100 to call for 30 0. I'm getting 300 for 100 now. I just need to make 450. Another 150. But if you add my call on the turn into the pot size, you can see that the 150 that I need to make at the end, if checked to, isn't that big a proportion of the pl. You're not winning what you put in. I'm just looking at it as, well, how much that how much is that extra bet that I need to make, how well what how big is it in proportion to the pot? 150 into 400. It's not going to even that be that big. So I thought it was a no-brainer call. Now, a couple of things I have going against me here though is that one, it puts a backdoor club draw out there, which sometimes might not necessarily get you paid off if the board comes out kind of hairy in some way. But more importantly, if an eight comes now, it puts a one-liner out there to a straight. Like I would much rather have this be like the three of I mean best card in the world for me would be like the three of diamonds. Because it's a seven, now in when an eight comes, anybody with a six has a straight, anybody with a jack has a straight. So if he has a hand like a set or like 10, 9, and an eight comes, maybe he doesn't pay off. And then again, you've got the backdoor flush out there too. So um, you know, if it was something like the eight of clubs, do you get paid off here by like two pair or a set? But at the same time, I can I still truly believe sometimes that I can actually treat this as more like a 17 out draw. I mean I've got eight straight outs to make my hand. I guess no I wouldn't it would be eight straight outs I'm counting the flush outs twice. Eight straight outs and then another seven flush outs. I I consider this almost like a 15-out draw. This is the whole point. Like I can represent when the front door heart comes in. If he checks, I felt like I can bluff him off the hand. And then if the stray comes in, maybe I'll get paid off. That's the whole thing when you go for open-ended straight draws on front door flushing boards. Again, this one, maybe it's not 100% the right the best example of it because of the turn card, because of the nature of the fact that this guy probably has two pair plus, but that's the idea. That concludes this free version of the Crush Live Poker subscription podcast. You just heard about 25% of the full podcast here for free. To hear the rest of this episode, be