Going all in an amateur mistake that can prove to be a costly one

There are times when it makes sense to play a flush draw aggressively, but there are times when ramping up the aggression level with a flush draw is a mistake. Knowing when to stomp the accelerator with this type of hand and when to use caution is critical.

With effective stacks of only 15 big blinds deep into a tournament, everyone folded around to the small blind, a tight player who raised to 2.5 big blinds. Our Hero looked down at Jh 5h.

While Jh 5h is certainly not a strong starting hand, due to the big ante in play, Hero only had to call 1.5 big blinds more into a pot that would be six big blinds total, meaning he only needed to realize 25 percent equity. That’s not too difficult to do with a suited hand in position.

The only time Hero could justify folding in this situation would be if he felt that his opponent’s 2.5-bigblind raising range was incredibly strong, and even then, calling wouldn’t be a terrible move. When you’re in position and getting amazing pot odds, folding is simply not an option with a hand that has any potential at all.

Hero called. The flop came Ah 8h 4s, giving Hero a flush draw. The opponent bet 2.5 big blinds.

At this point, many players would elect to go all in. But that would be a poor decision due to the fact that the opponent’s range should be much stronger than normal, and certainly much stronger than Hero’s. Think about it: The opponent raised small from the small blind, implying that he has a premium range and does not mind presenting Hero with seemingly excellent pot odds.

How does a premium range connect with A-84? It has lots of top pairs and underpairs such as Q-Q that will call a raise. The opponent can also remove many aces from Hero’s range because he would have pushed all-in pre-flop with most of them. So, the opponent has many strong hands in his range, whereas Hero has almost none.

Many players think they should always raise with their draws. But when your range is crushed by your opponent’s range, raising with a draw is a bad idea.

In this situation, Hero was even getting excellent immediate pot odds — he had to put in 2.5 big blinds to win a total of 11 big blinds — which made raising an even worse move. If stacks were deeper and the opponent had bet larger, raising would have become more viable because Hero would have been getting worse immediate pot odds, and he likely have had more combinations of A-8 and A-4 in his range.

Hero made the typical amateur mistake of going all in. The opponent quickly called with A-J, putting Hero in bad shape. Hero got bailed out when he made his flush on the river, which will likely lead to him jamming his draws in similar spots for a long time to come, resulting in him losing equity.