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Nut Flush Draw on the Turn in a 3-Way Pot
This spot came up in a recent $600 tournament in Chicago.
We get AhJh in MP and open to about 2.25bb. The BTN who has been cold calling a lot and VPIP’ing 40 or more calls. The BB calls. The effective stack is about 50bb.
The flop (about 10bb) comes Th, 7d, 4c. The BB checks. What is our action in this 3-way pot? If it were heads up against the BB I’m C-betting all day. If it were heads up against the active BTN, I’m probably C-betting because against this player I have the range advantage. But 3-way it’s more likely one of them hit this flop and isn’t folding to our C-bet. We check. The BTN checks.
The turn (about 10bb) is the 2h. The BB checks. We now have the nut flush draw but only one card to come. Do you think it’s very likely one of our opponents has something that won’t fold to a turn bet? One of them could be in check-call mode with a pair. A semi-bluff depends on fold equity and we likely don’t have very much of that in this 3-way pot. What is our action?
We check, hoping for a cheap showdown with ace-high or to get value from a pair if our nut flush gets there. BTN bets pot. BB folds. We don’t have the expressed odds to make this call. The implied odds aren’t looking good either because it’s hard to realize implied odds from a flush or an ace. A check-raise could be committing ourselves to the pot with a draw and might need to be a jam based on the stack-to-pot ratio. What is our action, now that the pot is finally heads up?
Did I miss a bet somewhere before it got to this precarious situation?
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2 Replies
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On the turn you hit your flush 19.57% of the time. You could bet 1/4 pot on the turn, you are giving yourself 20% pot odds with 19.6% equity 47/9 before any fold equity, and Ace high might win sometimes.
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This is a classic sandwich multiway spot. Love this as an example. This is the type of hand we find ourselves in a lot as rec players at lower buy-in tournaments, so it is so crucial to understand this dynamic. As I’ve studied these spots more and more, the first takeaway is that we check a lot on flops in this sandwich spot. Unlike our traditional bread and butter cbet spots, or even multiway hands where say we were the original opener and both blinds called, our flop bets when we are sandwiched need to be polarized from the get go. This is because both of our opponents should be mostly uncapped here (the blind should almost never lead in this dynamic). We are also even more incentivized to check because there is also a pressure on us to have strength in our checking range. This means that even though we’re polarized, our polarized bets need to divide some between cbets and some to check raises. So all that said, I love your flop check here. This is not a polar hand, it is a perfect hand to check. Far too many players bet in this spot and get into trouble.
The other thing checking does is allow us to see the true reactions of the in-position and out of position player. We have to remember that they are also caught in this multiway dynamic. On a fairly blank turn like the 2h, when IP already chose to check back flop and then OOP cks the turn, we get to bet a lot more. They have both capped themselves. You say we don’t have much fold equity, but I don’t think that is exactly true. With a larger turn bet, we can get small pocket pairs to fold, certainly any 4x and probably some 7x, along with Kx and Qx, and some gutters. When we are called, we are very likely behind, but we’re still way ahead of some of the other better draws and we’ve picked up a high equity draw ourselves. By betting the turn big, it means that we can comfortably bluff any river overcard to the T.
So while I loved your flop check, I think we need to bet this turn. We’re first hoping to just take it down on the turn. But the very nice thing about this type of holding is that we likely have outs to our A and J as well when called (AT/JT are the two nightmare hands, but we block them). I’m betting a fairly healthy amount and when called, I’m barreling the river BIG on any heart and any A-J. I’m giving up on other rivers after they call the healthy turn bet. Their range is so strong at that point and we block the draws we’d like them to have.
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