Most of the time, if you’ve got a made hand in poker (for example, JT in hold’em and the flop comes JT3), you will bet your hand. If you’re drawing (let’s say you have Q9 against the same board), you may very well decide to check. In fact, checking and calling is the natural thing to do when you have a drawing hand. However, this isn’t always automatic. In limit poker, you’re going to have to bet your draws as well as your made hands sometimes to avoid becoming too predictable. Betting a draw on the flop (or even the turn) is sometimes referred to as semi-bluffing. That is: you would like everybody to fold since you don’t have anything yet, but if you get called you might win the pot anyway by making your hand.
Some people (especially rocks or weak-tight Sbobet Indonesia players) don’t like it when players bet their draws aggressively. They will make remarks like: “Why did you bet? You had nothing yet”. In the game I like best (pot-limit Omaha) you will never hear comments like this. In this game, the big draw is often king; draws are often favorite over made hands on the flop. Drawing hands can and should therefore often be played aggressively. Now, let’s take a look at how to play drawing hands in three of the most popular poker games: limit hold’em, limit stud and pot-limit Omaha.
Draws in limit hold’em.
You may have heard limit hold’em is no drawing game. This is true to a large degree, because it’s harder to draw out in hold’em than in any other game. Most of all, this means hold’em is a kicker game: if you’ve got AK, there’s an ace on the board and your opponent is playing a bad ace, you …
