Chapter III sub (a) a mini monster draw poker story.

Its 11 hours before shuffle up'n deal time. Spent the night with the boys and the home game. We have a little miniseries going, points awarded for knockouts and placing in the money which will determine final table chip-stacks. Its the summer suckout series, and it is living up to its name. We play a short stacked, quick level game designed to finish a single table tourney in about two hours to squeeze in 3 tournies a night.

Its late, but there is one hand which fits the category of the monster draw rather nicely.

We're three handed at this point, 100/200 blinds, 3500 chips in play, I'm in second with 1000 chips, in the small blind, button is on the chip leader, BB has only 205 chips in his stack after paying the posting.

Chip Leader has limped in. A good move generally with such a short stack, we both can afford his all in, check down if necessary. The guy likes to play every hand and bet big too. I don't need to raise here, and I have a measly 4 -10 spades, but I have a gut its good to play. I complete the blind, and short stack checks it down.

Nice flop.

6 hearts 7 spades 8 spades.

Flish draw, and double belly-buster straight draw.

At this point, let me define for you the term "flish", my own, admittedly drunken, invention, a Freudian slip while typing in a chat at an on line poker table.

It is of course, fishing out on a river to catch that flush. A "flish" can refer to the guy who overplayed his flush draw, should never have been in the hand past the flop but called a huge bet and missed the turn, and found himself pot committed and praying with one card to go, but catches his card on the river. It also refers to the result.

This is no flish draw.

I have 9 spades. I have 3 more fives. I have 3 more 9's. Perhaps the 10 is live for 3 more.

15-18 outs. Two cards to go.

I move all my chips in and protect my draw from the other stack.

Short stack, a solid player, goes in the tank. Too long. I have to call the clock on him, but he eventually calls. Big Stack gets stared down, and folds. Too bad he folded.

Short stack turns over 8-10, two clubs.
He caught top pair, and my 10 is dead
But who cares.

A brief comment on outs in shorthanded play. The proportion of live out cards to the balance of the deck can change on the same draws in a full 10 hand table or a shorter stacked game. We will discuss this a bit as I continue Chapter III, and considerably more when we get to final tables.

Here we only have 9 cards in play, one in the muck, 2 which will be mucked. 11 of 52 cards and I know my opponent holds none of my outs. Only the 5 mucked with the big stack fold may contain my 15 outs. 5 of 45 is 1/9th dead outs, giving me 13.3 outs from 41 cards. Each street is 32.5% likely to give me an an unbustable hand.

65% to win is one hell of a draw. Sure beats a mere flush draw.

Lets say my opponent had 8A. Add the over card to bust top, 2.7 live means 78% to beat top pr, and 65% of the time the 2 eights and 3 aces are no help, which would hit 21% in the last 2 cards. Because the straight and flush draws weaken the value of the A pairing or 8 tripling by 65%, my over card pair draw and his 5 improving cards basically cancel each other out.

In in the circumstances of this hand, my opponents kicker, in other words, is irrelevant if its a ten or over.

If he turns over 89, there are still 3 nines to catch and 3 tens. Even if the nine is a spade, the math is nearly the same. It offers 16 clear outs that my opponent cannot negate with a countering out. I am over 69% to beat 89 any suit period. Catching 2 pr is a disaster. Exactly the same with 85. He removes one straight/flush out and gives up 3 over pair outs

A garbage 4,3,2 kicker for poor short stack can produce 2 pair to beat a my 3 live tens.

Only 2 pr on the flop for Short Stack lightning brings him up in his chance to win. now my live tens are dead, and he has 4 outs to beat 15. I can subtract 17% from my base 65% for a virtual coinflip. 48% for me 52% for him

He caught the flop and had my 10 dead but my draw made me a big favorite.

I hit the 5 of spades. Mixed nuts. Good game, Al.

Al is a very good player. I don't blame him for tanking with top pair on that monster draw flop. How would you like to catch top pair and be a 65% to 69% DOG?

We will see monster draw beat a huge made flop when I pick up Chapter III again.