Flop Analysis

Even though limit hold'em is my strongest game by far, I do venture into other forms of poker now and then. And so should you. The fact is that learning other types of poker will teach you new tools that are used more frequently in this particular game than in hold'em, but nevertheless come in handy in hold'em too. Omaha seems especially relevant in teaching you some of the fundamental tools of analysis required in hold'em.

Omaha will teach you the appropriate method to analyze the board, which is the most basic analysis you need to be able to perform in all types of poker. However, while it is easy to rest satisfied asking the limited question of whether your hand is the boss or the underdog in hold'em, Omaha forces you to be much more specific. The reason for this is that any Omaha hand consists of six different hold'em hands, and this of course means that there will be so many more draws out there. Below is given an example of how you perform a thorough flop analysis of an Omaha high hand.

You hold KdQh7c6c and get a free play in the big blind. The flop comes 9h8h5s giving you the current nuts." Great!" you think and bet out. This is what most players do. I have a hand that I like, period! The good player will think a lot more than that before he proceeds to act. The first thing he will think about is the likelihood of him STILL holding the nuts on the river. Any heart will kill his hand leaving a flush on the board. There are 8 of those left in the deck. Any 9,8 or 5 will pair the board leaving a full house possible, that's 9 outs plus one out for the turn and river card pairing up. Any 6,7,10,J or Q will leave a bigger nut straight on the board. That's 15 outs (not re-counting the hearts). So of the 45 unseen cards 32 of them will deprive you of the nut hand. That's a lot of outs against you. As a matter of fact the chances of you still having the nut hand on the river is 13/45*12/44 = 8% (you have to hit a safe card on the turn AND the river). In short. You are a 12 to 1 underdog when flopping the nuts!!!

On analyzing the flop, you should always know what the current nut hand is, how vulnerable the current nut hand is to redraws, how many outs your own hand has to draw out on the current nut hand. I call this part of the analysis the vulnerability analysis, and in my opinion this should be the very first part of your analysis of the flop, as vulnerability concerns tend to have serious implications for how you should play your own hand, especially for how to time your raises in order to successfully knock drawing hands off the pot. Whereas you can get along in hold'em without ever thinking much about vulnerability, this line of analysis is vital to Omaha play, as Omaha hands are always much more vulnerable than hold'em hands, given the number of draws out there. For this reason, it is also central to no-fold'em hold'em, but it should in my opinion be performed for every single hold'em hand played regardless of the limit.

After doing that, you proceed to the next level of analysis- namely, to figure out the relative strength of your hand compared to that of your opponents likely holdings as judged from their actions in the hand incorporating your knowledge of their playing style acquired through observing them in previous hands. This type of analysis could be termed hand strength analysis.

In the hand under discussion you might decide to check your flopped nuts with the intention of folding if confronted with a lot of action. However, if everybody proceeds to check behind you and the turn card is one of your safe cards, the ace of spades. You bet and get raised. What is the implication of that raise? As everybody checked the flop, chances are that nobody else flopped the straight. However, as you checked the flop too, your opponents wont be able to put you on the nut hand with any confidence. The most likely hand for your opponent to raise with here is therefore a set of aces, and you should proceed to re-raise to isolate. But wait a minute! Didn't you just say that I only had 13 outs and that he has 10 outs to hit a full house or quads? I did. But that was for your flopped nuts to remain the nuts on the river. With the current action, chances are that your opponent has 10 outs to improve to beat you, and you, as the current boss hand, will win the hand unless he improves on the river. Your initial analysis of the board gave you a good idea of the vulnerability of your hand, and also set your mind straight on the possible implications of any conceivable turn and river card. This is extremely important, as that analysis is the basis for you seizing opportunities arising later in the hand without having to hesitate to analyze the situation at hand anew. Instead you can now focus solely on refining the hand strength analysis as the hand progresses, going from the general conclusions of the vulnerability analysis to the specifics of this particular situation. The hand strength analysis will usually not allow you to put your opponent on a specific hand. In the case discussed above he might for instance have a flush redraw to go along with his redraw for a full house. But you should be able to narrow down the possibilities as the hand progresses, and you should add a probability to each likely holding.

I use this two-tier approach when analyzing the board in hold'em too, and I believe that I have a significant edge over most mid limit players, due to the fact that they are far less specific in their analysis of the strength and vulnerability of their hand.

Lets look at the same flop discussed above in a hold'em setting. You hold As9d in the big blind and get a free flop with three other players. The flop come a familiar 9h8h5s. Chances are reasonable that your top pair with top kicker is the current best hand, though you might be way behind or even drawing dead. Assuming that your hand is currently the best, ask yourself what cards are most likely to hurt your hand. A heart might complete somebody's flush draw. There are 9 hearts left in the deck. Any six or seven is likely to give somebody a straight. That's 6 outs. Any card higher than a nine might give somebody a higher pair. However, in this specific situation the most likely damaging cards are a 10, J or Q as that will give anybody drawing for a straight a straight or higher pair then yours. There are 9 of those. On top of that, you cannot really rule out any card as completely non-dangerous. In any case you have now assessed that your hand will be the current best hand the majority of time, but that it is a very vulnerable hand, and leave it at that for now. You proceed to bet it partly for value and partly to knock out hands that missed the flop but that includes over cards that might hurt you later on. The first two players fold, but the last player raises. What is the implication of his raise?

The answer to that is that this is very dependent on who your opponent is. It could mean a flopped straight, two pair, a set, a heart draw trying to get a free card or a straight draw with over cards trying to get the turn for free. In the last two cases, what is the probability of this specific opponent will bet his semi bluff all the way relative to the probability that he will give his hand away by taking the free card?

Of all these possibilities, four scenarios will have you drawing dead, namely a flopped straight or a set. How loose is this player from this position? Is he likely to play 76? I would certainly have been more confident if the caller had been an early position player here than the guy on the button. Of the remaining possibilities I will be dominated by any over pair. But as the pot was unraised pre-flop the likelihood of an over pair is not overly high here. Two pair is also a possibility, but in that case I am drawing to at least 3 outs and more than that unless it is the top two pair. If he only flopped top pair he might be raising with the worst hand here, which is a possibility not to be ruled out. What does he put me on? Finally there are straight draws with over cards and flush draws. Will this specific opponent typically play his draws this aggressively? With no specific reads on my opponents I would go ahead under the assumption that I am behind a third of the time, have him dominated about a third of the time, and have him on a draw about a third of the time. But the more I know about his playing style the more specifically I can estimate the probability for each of the three options. And from the first part of the analysis, I know the potential danger of various cards left in the deck. As I concluded that I had the current best hand approximately two out of three times here, I will probably fold on the turn if a heart a 6, 7, 10, J or Q hits, as those are the most likely cards to help him. If any other card hits I ill probably bet into him again, depriving him of the option to take a free turn card. If I considered him a very passive player with his draws, I would either fold on the flop for his raise or just call it down, possibly trying a check-raise steal if a heart comes.

This is how it is done. How many of these thoughts usually cross your mind before it is your turn to act on the flop? Don't worry. It takes a lot of practice before you get it right most of the time, and are able to perform all these computations within the limited time you have to act. So you should start to practice. A good start would be to try and figure out how many cards that will leave a higher nut hand possibility on the river than the one seen on the flop. This is the vulnerability analysis. When you have reached a point where you do this all the time without even thinking about it, you should start to work on the hand strength analysis - how good is my hand relative to the likely holdings of my opponents, and what is the probability of being ahead, behind and drawing dead respectively? But as nobody will ever become flawless in these disciplines, you will probably never stop working on all three.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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