Bug's Poker Tip #14

When you have a good drawing hand, plan on missing the draw.

From the moment you find yourself with a drawing hand, you need to start planning to bluff on the river. Most draws miss. This is a fact. Open-ended straight draws on the flop only get there about 30% of the time. Flush draws fare only slightly better at 35%. In other words, you're not going to make your hand 65% to 70% of the time, or more than two out of every three times you draw. This means that if you want to take down the pot, you're going to have to bluff at it when your draw misses. And this whole process begins with a) determining whether your opponent in the hand is in fact bluffable; and b) acting in a way prior to the river that represents something other than a draw. Bad players are generally not bluffable. Really good players often aren't either, especially if they're reading you accurately and putting you on draws. Choose your spots to draw very carefully. If you don't think you can get away with a bluff on the river, then ask yourself why are you in this speculative hand in the first place?

All-in for now...

-Bug