Pro Tips with Alexander Fitzgerald: Betting sets vs. completed flush draws

Alex Fitzgerald at the WPT Borgata Poker Open, 2018
Alexander Fitzgerald
Posted on: January 5, 2025 10:52 PST

Imagine you raise from early position with pocket eights in either a low-stakes cash game or a low-stakes tournament. Two players in middle position call you. Both players are actually fairly nondescript, and you've never seen them do anything that out of the ordinary. 

The board comes with an eight, giving you a set, and it also comes with a queen, a jack, and a spade flush draw. You continuation bet. You should use a larger bet versus bad players because they're not going to fold with one pair to the first bet. It's not exactly balanced, but it doesn't matter. You'll still make money from it. 

You push out the bet, and one of them calls. The turn brings in a low spade and a possible flush for your opponent.

You should still bet the turn there a lot of the time versus mediocre competition in low-stakes games. Many players still cannot fold top pair or second pair even when the flush draw comes in. 

What about the raise?

The only hands that are really capable of raising the turn are flushes. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to fold to the turn raise. Especially if it's a small turn raise.

But there are many players who play very straightforwardly in this situation. Most often they just call with top pair and second pair. 

Then on the river they would raise if they made their flush. It's fairly simple to play against but you'll see many people just check their set there and cost themselves value.

Because the flushes will bet, but the top pair and second pair will check back a lot of the time, you need to fire in this spot and get some value. You're only going to face a raise from an opponent a very small percentage of the time.


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