Should We Ever Fold A Flush?

There are times to make big folds, but is this the right spot to fold a flush? Hero ends up flopping a HUGE hand not only spiking the nuts – but also having a straight-flush draw to go with it. But when the flush draw fills on the river and villain gets aggressive hero decides to find the fold button. Let’s see if his hero fold is good, or really bad…

In this hand, there is a min-raise, folds to hero who decides to call. Totally standard so far. Another call and another call and a fold from the big blind. Totally standard so far. End up flopping the nuts. Not so standard, but pretty awesome. Bet, call, hero decides to raise, and here we are.

I love the fact that we’re raising, but I really hate the size. I know I say this, like, a bazillion times a month, but bet sizing is something we all need to be working on and improving on, and only going 17 cents here is criminal. It leaves way too much money on the table.

This isn’t something where I’m trying to be ego-oriented and say, “Oh, there are 4 NL players. They’re all dumb. They’re all bad.” It has nothing to do with that. It simply has to do with the fact that lots of players will pay lots of money to draw, whether that’s drawing to 2 pairs, whether that’s drawing to flush draws, whether that’s drawing to straight draws. You name it, players will oftentimes pay way more than they should to draw to things. And, thus, is it our responsibility to punish them by making really big raise sizes.

In this situation, honestly, just hit the pot button. Go up to something like 50 cents and go forward from there. If someone has 7x, they’re still going to get sticky a large chunk of the time. A flush draw, a straight draw, you name it, they’re going to get sticky a lot.

This is just a hand where only going to 17 cents is just criminal. It leaves a ton of money and value on the table. You need to be punishing people, not allowing them to draw against you for free and cheap.

We end up getting called by Kiko. They are the main villain. They are a 31/13. They are a recreational player. Vako also says that they are capable of bluffing, small bets are usually weak pairs, and usually big bets are either premiums or bluff hands. This person has shown the propensity to play for stacks with flush draws. Excellent. All good information to know.

Going on to the turn, we still have a great hand. He bets. Okay. So them leading into us really just implies that they like their hand at least somewhat, at least in my opinion. That’s how I’m looking at it. Twelve cents means that they probably don’t love it a ton, but I’m definitely going to raise. I’m just definitely going to raise much larger.

So, again, you can pretty much just hit the pot button here and go forward from there. I think, again, going for 41 cents, you’re just giving them such a good price with anything. That is kind of criminal. And if they want to stick around, if they want to draw, if they want to see if their 7x is the best hand, let’s test that and let’s really see if we can go for stacks here. It’s very, very criminal to only go to 41 cents.

We end up getting called, not shocking. River is the diamond. Okay. We end up facing a bet of $1.11 from Kiko. So as I’m sure you guessed from the information in the intro, Vako does decide to fold here. And Vako says this in the write-up. He says:

“I don’t know if I made a hero fold or an idiot fold on the river with my flush. I hope you can help.”

Vako, I love the fact that you’re questioning that. I love the fact that you’re not in here trying to say, “Oh, this is the best fold ever,” nothing like that. You’re really just looking at this subjectively saying, “Hey, was this a good fold or is this a bad fold?” Love the fact that we’re doing that. But honestly, this is a bad fold. Yes, you may be behind some percentage of the time, but this is a situation where you cannot be convinced that you were behind anywhere near enough of the time to justify getting rid of this.

I am going to say one very, very important thing. Had you bet sized better at every stage in this hand, this doesn’t happen.

So if we go back to the flop. Think about it. If you had pretty much potted the flop to something like 50 cents and you get called, that’s $1.36 in the middle right here, as oppose to only 74 cents. Now, all of a sudden, you’re almost pretty much all in when this person decides to lead the turn and you decide to pot it.

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Again, we’re all in at that point. So the river doesn’t even exist. We’ve already forced Kiko to make a decision earlier in the hand, rather than creating a situation where we could possibly make a blunder. In this situation, again, I think folding on the river is a pretty large blunder. Could we be behind some percentage of the time? Sure. Enough of the time for me to panic? Most certainly not.