Mailbag: Playing a Suited Flop

One topic that I would appreciate some comments (and possibly something posted on the blog for discussion) are techniques for playing, in comparatively low-staked NL games, a flop of three suited cards. In particular, for those circumstances where there has not been a lot of pre-flop action, and you are holding hands such as a small flush or a set.

I find bet-sizing in these circumstances to be very difficult, given the incredibly wide range of hands which other players will stick around with (TPTK, single-card flush draws etc).

A: Your question illustrates quite well the importance of thinking in terms of ranges rather than specific hands. You’re absolutely right that it can be tricky to figure out what sort of hand an opponent has on a suited flop. To make matters worse, the way you’d like to play your hand is often very different depending on whether you’re up against a draw, a set, or a flush. So what to do?

First, you’ve got to accept that you aren’t going to play perfectly against every hand in Villain’s range. There are simply too many of them, and they are too diverse. Your goal will be to play your range perfectly against his. The rest of my answer here will assume that you don’t have much information about how Villain will play any particular hand and that you are seeking to be relatively balanced and play well against a wide and unknown range; this could all change with the right reads and tells.

Start by thinking about which of your possible holdings (any hand you could have played the way that you did pre-flop) would be good enough to get all-in on this flop. This is your value range. In a single-raised pot with 100 BB stacks, that would be most flushes and maybe top set (note that top set may well bet a better hand than a very low flush, since it will crush smaller sets and have outs against a flush, whereas a small flush is drawing dead against a bigger flush and isn’t a huge favorite against a set). These are hands that you should play fast, betting and raising at every opportunity.

Now consider which will be the best bluffing hands to balance your value range. These should be hands with relatively little showdown value but with decent equity against the hands Villain will not fold. The single best candidate here is the nut flush draw, but the second and third nut flush draws have some potential as well. Given that your value range is not that wide, you don’t need a huge bluffing range either. You should play these hands aggressively at every opportunity, at least as long as there’s some chance of making your opponent fold. Remember, the idea is to balance your value range by playing some good semi-bluffs the same way.

Where things really get tricky is when you have neither a very strong hand nor a very strong draw. On a suited flop, this could be everything from top pair to a straight. I divide these marginal hands into two categories: those that have redraws and those that do not. So top pair with a good flush draw is a different hand than top pair with the same kicker but no draw. A set is in the first category but a straight is not. Two pair actually belongs in the second category, because although you could redraw to a full house, you have few outs for doing so.

When you have no redraws, you should generally play aggressively until raise. If your opponent bets, you have to make a decision between calling or folding, but you can’t raise. If you’re doing the betting, you can bet as long as you believe worse hands will call, but you have to fold if raised.

The hands with redraws play best as bluff-catchers. You might choose to bet once, but you shouldn’t raise with them, and if your flop bet is called, it’s generally good to check and call on the turn. What you don’t want is to create a situation where you get blown off of a good draw by a big raise.

They key to handling these tough situations is big-picture thinking, seeing all of the possibilities for both you and your opponent and then making your decision in that context. For more on this concept, see Making Tough Decisions in the Articles Archive.

Thanks for the question!

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