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Part V-A: Flopping the Nuts
"The Nuts" in poker is a
hand which at the given point you are at in the course of play, can
not be beat. Its the best possible hand that can be made at the
present time, although it may be beat by the outcome of later cards
which hit the flop, turn, or river. Pre-flop, a pair of Aces is
the nuts hand. If the flop comes: K-8-6 of different suits
(rainbow) then a set of kings is the nuts hand at that point. If
another 8 were to come on the turn, then four of a kind, or quad 8's
becomes the nuts hand. If the last king were to fall on the
river, then quad kings are the nuts, and the holder of the quad 8's
has received what is known as a true "bad beat". (A true bad
beat is when one high hand, a four of a kind, or straight flush, is
beat by another high hand, which would also include a Royal Flush, the
best hand that it is possible to make.)
When you "flop the
nuts" you generally run into two different kinds of situations, which
present two different sets of problems which are completely opposite
in their character. The first kind of situation is that you have
flopped a nuts hand which has a very small chance of getting beat by
the time the river card falls. Its very likely to hold up until
the end. An example of this is if you had pocket kings and the
flop came: K-8-2. In this situation you are way ahead, and given
the fact that you probably raised pre-flop with your pocket kings, its
going to be very hard to get any action here most of the time.
Therefore you need to check after the flop and hope your opponent has
the fourth king or possibly A,8, or even a smaller pocket pair, hoping
to draw a bet or a bluff. If he does bet, then you should just
call, still trying to portray the image that you are marginal, in
order to induce more action down the line. If he checks then you
are hoping that he is going to catch something on the turn. When
the turn falls (assuming he has made a bet to you on the previous
round) you check again. If he bets again then at this point you
can raise his bet. This known as a "check-raise". You have at least
some money in the pot at this point, and if he really has got a hold
of something he will call you and then call you again on the river.
Not a bad outcome. If after the flop he checked, and then
checked again on the turn, then you are going have to bet the river
yourself in order to try and induce one call from him. You
probably won't get it, but there is nothing else that you can do in
that situation.
The second kind of situation you will run into
if you flop the nuts is one in which there is a good chance that your
hand won't hold up until the river, due to a variety of possible
draws. Percentage wise overall, you are still going to be in the
lead after the flop, but there is a good 35% to 40% potentiality that
you are going to be outdrawn. A good example would be if you had
8,9 off suit, and the flop came 7 hearts, 10 hearts, J diamonds.
You now have the current nuts hand but you are threatened by both a
heart flush draw and a higher (K,Q) straight draw, and also a possible
J,10 two pair which could make a full house. So your concern
here isn't, "Can I get enough action on this hand?" But, "Is my nuts
straight going to hold up to the river with all of these draws out
there?" Therefore the only way to play this hand is to bet it
aggressively from the outset. You are trying to chase away the
chasers, and if you can't do that, then you are trying to at least
make them pay for their chasing if their minority draw doesn't pan
out. |
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