Playing Postflop – The Equity of Draws

Firstly, let’s clear up what the term ‘equity’ means: Equity is simply the percentage of the pot you are expected to win. An example of this is if you go all in preflop with AA against KK, in this situation you have about 80% chance of winning the pot, therefore you have 80% equity. When we talk about the equity of draws, we assume that we will win the pot if we complete our draw, so it simply refers to what percentage of the time we will complete our draw.

In postflop situations, you will often find yourself in a position where you hold a draw that, if improved, will most likely give you the best hand. But, in order to know when and where to call bets with our draws, we need to know how often we will complete them. This article gives you a quick guide on the common types of draw and how often you can expect to hit them.

Flush Draws

When we hold a flush draw, it means we only need one more card of the same suit and then we hold a flush. This can mean, for example, we hold two hearts in our hole cards and there are two hearts on the flop. Or, alternatively, we can hold 1 heart in our hole cards and there are three hearts on the flop (these types of flush draw are more dangerous, as it’s more likely that our opponent also holds a heart and, unless we have a high heart in our hand, they can easily have a higher one).

To complete a flush draw, we need to hit one of the potential nine remaining hearts in the deck (this means we have nine outs). If we are on the flop and expect to see both remaining community cards we can expect to hit our flush around 36% of the time. If we only expect to see one more community card (such as when we plan to fold on the turn, or if we are on the turn needing to complete the draw on the river) we can expect to complete our draw about 20% of the time.

Open Ended Straight Draw

An open ended straight draw (OESD) is when we can complete a straight if one of two possible card values comes out. An example would be when we hold 89 on a board of 7TA, meaning if a 6 or a J come on the turn or river then we will complete our draw.

Since there are four of each of these cards, it means we have a total of eight outs. If we are on the flop and expect to see the turn and river, we will complete our straight 34% of the time. If we are only going to see one more community card, we will hit our straight 18% of the time.

Gutshot Straight Draw

A gutshot straight draw is when only one card value can complete our straight. An example of this is if we hold 9T on a flop of 86A, meaning if a 7 comes on the remaining streets we will hit a straight. This means we have a total of four outs to hit our straight.

If we expect to see two more community cards, such as being on the flop and expecting to reach the river, we will hit our gutshot straight draw 19% of the time. If we are only going to see one more community card, we will complete the draw 9% of the time.

Open Ended Straight Flush Draw

Now, you won’t come across this situation very often, but it is included to illustrate just how powerful draws can be. An open ended straight flush draw is when you have both a straight draw, a flush draw, and two cards that can give you a straight flush. Such an example would be holding QJ of diamonds on a flop of T9A, with the Ten and the 9 being diamonds.

Having this hand, we would hold a total of 15 outs to hit a straight, a flush, or a straight flush. This means that, with two cards still left to see, we would complete the draw 56% of the time. If we only have one card left to see we would complete the draw 34% of the time.

Summary

• You will often find yourself in situations where you hold a draw and are facing a bet, wondering whether to call
• When considering this, you should take into account the equity of your draw and couple it with the odds you are getting when facing your opponents bet, which is something we will cover next
• Draws can range in strength depending on the number of outs they have to complete it, and how many community cards we have left to see.