How to play the nut flush draw deep in a Sunday Major?

Barry Carter got a line check on a hand where he turned the nuts but the board paired on the river - do you go broke here?

Last week our friends Dara and David from The Chip Race reviewed a session played by Barry Carter in the €100 SuperNova on Unibet. Today we take a deeper look at one of the key hands. 

So we have A 9 in Middle Position and I open and get called by the Big Blind. We have 17,745 chips effective and the pot is 1,125. The flop is a very favourable 8 6 J. We are checked to and I bet 700. 

David Lappin: This is a spot where I might check back myself. You have a good Ace high hand with a backdoor straight draw and nut flush potential. I don't see the point in bloating, if we do bet I go for a small sizing. 

Dara O'Kearney: If we put this into a solver it would mix both bets and checks. If you always bet with this, when we check and the club comes on the turn, we can never have the nut flush. So we have to mix both, which means the EV of both is the same, so it doesn't matter what we do. My preference is betting. Even if he folds it's a good result for us and also our hand can make a very strong hand by the river, including well disguised runner straights. It's better to bet now rather than waiting to hit the hand. If we bet I prefer betting big because there are a lot of cards could give him a straight, so I want to get more money in the pot now while we have a very strong hand. 

He reraises to 1,962 and I just flat. If this was a lower stakes tournament I would just shove because I know I have good equity against any hand but against a thinking player I think that makes it obvious what I have and I only get called by sets or two pair. 

David Lappin: I quite like the call, you are in position so you have good visibility to what happens later on. If he bets again he might bet small again so you can continue if you miss. 

Dara O'Kearney: I agree. We also know exactly where we are with the hand. If we brick we have a bad Ace high so we are not folding away too much equity if he triple barrels. If we get a club we know we have the nuts. Also there is a pot control element, this is as soft as Sunday Majors get. You don't want a 45/55 flip against this field. There are reasons for raising, he could have dominated draws which we crush. Any time we have the nut draw it's reasonable to raise and get it in. 

We get the K on the turn and he bets 4,400. Given I have taken a passive line, carrying on that way like I was pot controlling a Jack seemed the way to go. 

David Lappin: The keys to these types of spots is he is going quite big now. When somebody bets big here they are polarising themselves to nut-ish hands and bluffs, this is a good scare card to do that. There is no reason to raise, you want to keep all his bluffs in. 

Dara O'Kearney: I strongly agree with that. This is a clear cut decision, we should just call here. There is no bad card for us on the river. I also don't think there would be any hand we would bluff raise here. Maybe QT with one club to fold the bottom of his range.

You said there were no bad river cards, the river is the 8 which pairs the board. He shoves for his remaining 11,383. 

David Lappin: We can't get away anyway. 

Dara O'Kearney: That's the key, we can't get away. This is a bad river card in the sense that some hands now beat us, but it is not bad in the sense that if we had shoved the turn he would have called all his sets anyway, so he was getting there either way, rather than us letting him get there. 

David Lappin: Another club might have been a worse card because it's an action killer. 

I call and he showed Q 8 for a worse flush and a full house blocker. 

David Lappin: He should have called his hand on the flop. 

Dara O'Kearney: I agree, non-nut flush draws are generally better played passively because this can happen. He probably should have checked the flop, by shoving he folds out your bluffs and you might have bet with a missed straight draw, like 9T with one club. He's going broke anyway unless you bet less than all-in. If he were deeper check/raising might have worked for him, if you checked he wins because no better hand would check back, if you bet he could reraise and force you to fold with his nut blocker - but we are not deep enough to do that here. 

In case you missed it you can see the whole session right here:

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