Calling with Drawing Hands

The brutal part of poker - calling down when you're drawing to a flush or straight. Some pray to hit, some call because they are getting the right price and its profitable.

When is calling with draws acceptable?

We need to have the correct pot odds and also the implied odds to make calling profitable. Never call your stack to someone just for the hell of it or because you'retilting - That's what fish do, and you're not a fish! Both of these plays long-term will cost us tons of money! We have to be the professionals and play the maths. Let the other guys chase, we will make so much money from them long term - Just try not to let other players drawing and hitting tilt you.

Implied Pot odds:

Implied odds are pot odds continued, which tell you if you are going to win more money on later streets. If you know your opponent won’t fold when a draw completes we know we will get paid/win a stack when we hit then are implied odds are correct.

Big tip:

Make sure you are making the correct assumptions of how much more money you can make when you hit. Don’t persuade yourself that they will put the extra money in that we need to call. Putting the villain on the correct range is also vital, we need to have a clear reason why we put them on what we are, also paying attention to what players think we have. Have we played draws the same way before? Timing tells? Taking note of this and our image is just as important as putting the villain on a hand and assuming they will put more chips in the pot when we hit.

An example:

$0.25-$0.50 nlhe

Hero ($50)

Villain ($50)

Hero opens $1.50 45

Villain calls $1.50 99

Flop:

239

Villain leads $3

Hero Calls $3 

Turn: j

Villain bets $4

Hero Calls $4

Here we are getting pot odds of 13/4 = 3.25/1

The current odds of the hand is Villain 70%, Hero 30%. So as you can see we are getting a good enough price as it is. However vs the specific villain's hand our implied odds shoot up. This is because when we hit our hand the villain will find it hard to fold a set and will put more money into the pot (hopefully a full stack).

Additionally, hitting a draw is somewhat hidden as the A and 6 don’t seem to change much and the flush will be a back door. This gives us an even bigger reason to call to hit.