It doesn’t matter if you’re playing online or sitting at the table with your Friday night poker buddies. When it comes to pursuing a flush, the numbers don’t always add up. Seasoned online poker pokers have had longstanding debates about whether or not it’s prudent to follow after a flush. To answer this age old question you first have to define this practice and understand its true meaning.
In Hold’em poker this practice is based on the act of wagering to remaining with a certain hand in the hopes that you’ll develop a greater hand, even when you might have nothing of value to hold onto in the first place. So, for all intents and purposes, this refers to placing of bets with the goal of acquiring a card or set of cards that you need to complete your flush hands by the turn card or river card. This only pertains to the period prior to the flop. At this time you hold two cards in your possession and therefore the flush isn’t on.
So let’s say you’re wagering at a prominent internet poker sites and you are dealt an Ace as well and a nine of clubs and you’ve got an opportunity to view the flop. This flop is the two and seven of clubs and the King of diamonds and your opponent wagers heavily with a good sized raise, what should you do? Well first you have to consider the sort of hand working against you. There are a limited number of possible outcomes when you bluff with the Ace. But, if you get a club in the final two hands you might get your flush and you would only lose if faced with four of a kind or full house. You might think that your odds of getting the club are 50-50 based on the thinking that if there are two cards left to be played and in four suits your odds are half in favor of getting your flush and half against it.
But this is wrong thinking. The odds are in fact stacked against you. So what will you do when you wager on the turn card and you don’t get your flush? You’ve already committed yourself financially even though your odds of beating your opponent are considerably smaller. This is precisely why holding onto your cards praying that you’ll hit your flush is very risky behavior that will usually result in loses and keeps you from walking away a winner.