You have a flush draw and an aggressive player bets almost all-in. Call?
When the money is almost all in, implied odds disappear. What's left is a straight comparison: how often you win against what this player bets.
The hand
$1/$3 No-Limit Hold'em, 9-handed. You have $105, the cutoff has $105. The cutoff is an aggressive recreational player: plays loose and likes to bet and bluff.
- You
- Button, K♦Q♦ (no pair with a flush draw)
- Preflop
- The cutoff raises to $15. You call.
- Flop
- 8♦7♥4♦ (pot $34) The cutoff bets $15. You call.
- Turn
- 6♣ (pot $64) The cutoff bets $65.
You have $65 to call into a $129 pot. What do you do?
How to think about it
1. Work out the price
You call $65 to win a pot that will be $194. So the call needs to win more than $65 ÷ $194 = 33.5% of the time to make money.
2. Notice there's nothing left to win
After calling you'd have only $10 behind. There are no implied odds: you win what's in the pot now or nothing. So the call is right only if your chance of winning beats 33.5%.
3. Count everything you win with
You have king-queen of diamonds on 8-7-4 with two diamonds, then a 6. Nine diamonds give you a flush, about 20% on their own. But that's not the whole story:
- An aggressive player bets this size with many hands, not just strong ones.
- Against a wide range, king-high or queen-high may already be best some of the time, and pairing your king or queen on the river may be enough to win.
Our engine counts all of this exactly against this player's betting range. Against a nit, who bets this size only with strong hands, the same draw is in much worse shape.
See the engine's answer
LevelUp's poker engine works out exactly what this player holds here, how often each option wins, and its dollar value against this opponent type. Play spots like this at an animated table, explain your reasoning, and find out which of your instincts are costing you money.
The takeaway
When the money is all in, add up every way you win against the hands this player actually bets, not just your flush outs. A wide betting range makes your other outs count.