Everywhere I look i see that you are not supposed to play small 3 flushes and 3 straights against known big pairs but when you stove it youll be at worst 2.2/1 dog. In my game, 10-20 w/ 2 ante and 2 bring in ill be getting 2.8 to 1 against any big pair. shouldnt I always play these hands in this situation? what am I missing? thanks!

Your hot and cold equity is only part of the story. Often you'll make draws that are very expensive to pursue, and you'll find yourself making payoff hands like small two-pairs more often than straights. Three straights without additional secondary equity (overcards or a suit) are sucker bait and if you routinely play them against overpairs you'll be the reason the game runs.

You'll do well in low ante games to think of straight draws as additional equity for hands that have other things going for them. If you start with a pair and a suit and pick up a straight draw then you have many ways to improve, but if you start with a straight draw only, you have only one trajectory to a showdown hand.

In a high ante game you'll do more representing and straight draws can provide some cover, but naked straight draws are still not premium hands.

thanks electrical. however, doesnt the hot/cold equity take this into account? when i make 2 pair ill get paid off by the unimproved big pair as well, no?

yes the draw is expensive but im being laid a price and that expense is profit when i hit and as long as im being laid the right price its worth it to draw i'd think.

take limit holdem, if I have 44 but I know my opponent has a bigger pair im in big trouble but if the pot is laying me 8-1 folding would be a big mistake, no?

two pair is a lot harder to fold than one pair.

You can be getting a breakeven price on Third, but quickly be drawing close to dead and not know it, making just enough hand or draw to continue. Contrast with a small pair in holdem, where you either flop a set instantly and get paid for several streets or miss instantly and throw it away at minimal cost. Straight draws in stud take several streets to develop equity or bust, and that's where the leak is.

If you are looking at hot/cold equity then you need to at least estimate effective odds, which is
(the whole pot at the end of the river) : (the amount you put in)
In a heads up pot this is usually quite close to
(bringin + antes + bets) : bets
where "bets" is all the future bets that go in. So if you assume, say, 1 bet per street then bets=4bb, and this comes down to
(bringin + antes + 4) : 4
if antes are .1bb (like FTP was) and bringin is say .125bb then bringin + antes is about 1bb so you have
(4+1):4 = 5:4 = 1.25:1

So if you were going to call down blindly you'd need about 55% equity to continue.

This is just an example/estimate but it shows why you can't compare your immediate pot odds to hot/cold equity unless there are no future bets. Especially on 3rd st, because there are a lot more bets to come.

And just to be clear, there's a huge difference between (67)8 rainbow and (JQ)K with two cards of the same suit. Small flush draws that are live I like better for one card against players who are likely to pay you off. But if you start with (36)9 suited, and improve to (36)93 on fourth, you'll likely call a bet but often need to fold fifth unimproved.

This. The hot/cold equation should be an effective, not immediate, odds question. Electrical is 100% right, too, but I see his arguments as secondary to the central concern above.

sarah

Basically the same argument though. Your immediate odds only cover the cost of one street, but drawing hands take a few cards to develop equity or bust.

Sure. I guess I had in mind what you wrote about making payoff hands.

It's also important how the hand is likely to be played. At a table where you might see a fourth card for the cost of the bringin alone (as is often the case at lo-stakes stud tournaments) and where pots are unlikely to be headsup after third street, I'd almost always take a card with a live 678, then fold any bad card on fourth. Almost 20% of the time we'll have a 5678 or 6789 hand on fourth in a multiway pot, which is a pretty good spot as long as we can usually recognize when we're up against flushes or boats.

If, though, third is completed and the pot is going to be two-handed if you call, 678 is horrible against an overpair.

And where do you play lo-stakes stud tournaments?

I mostly play them at bwin, where they have one $5 and one $22 stud and stud hi/lo tourney each day. Stars has a lot of lo-stakes stud tourneys too, which I sometimes play.