When to Attack with a Drawing Hand

When to Attack with a Drawing Hand


  Boredom is a bad reason to do anything. If you play a drawing hand simply because you are sick of folding your hole cards and think you need to do something, then you are playing poker with the same mindset that Dilbert's pointy-haired boss manages his office. During tournaments and cash games you are going to want to pick your spot when playing your drawing hands. There are certain situations that work well with that sort of hole cards.



  The best possible situation when playing your drawing hand is for you to have really good odds. This falls under the heading of "duh", but seems to be something that people need to be occasionally reminded of. A player trying to decide whether to go into battle with their drawing hand must be sure the pot is going to be pretty big, and when a player sees that situation presents itself, they should take it as a green light to enter the pot.



  Another situation where players can take advantage of their drawing hand is when they are on either end of the chip extreme. Players with big, healthy stacks can use their chip advantage to bully the smaller stacks. By betting big, you are forcing the medium and small stacks to match you and put their survival at risk. Conversely, somebody with a very small stack may think that they have very little to lose and wind up going in with the drawing hand hoping to get lucky and double-up. Even if they lose, that was probably going to happen anyway.



  Good Luck!