Say you have 20 BB's left, and get half your chips into the middle in a heads-up pot before getting raised all in, and you have the nut flush draw. You're getting laid 3:1 on a 1:3 chance of hitting and being good. If you win you have 40 BB, and if you fold you have 10 BB.

Assuming you can get the 10 BB in good, say a 2:1 favorite, would it be better to wait for this spot and have a 2:1 chance to double up to 20BB again, or just better to get it all in with the even money chance at 40BB?

But you can't. That's the problem.

The only hands that practically guarantee you such a good edge are QQ+, and the combined chances of seeing any of those three are about 1.4% in any given hand. Assuming you're at a 10-seat table and the blinds never go up, you could be down to 5BB or less before one of them arrives. More likely, blinds go up and by the time your perfect hand arrives, you're hoping to go from 1BB to 2BB.

Plus, who knows if you get action when your 2:1 arrives? You may end up with nothing more than the blinds. In that case, you won't double through.

Once you're down to 10BB, or less, you've got very little room for post flop play. Your double-or-nothing hopes depend almost entirely on shoving preflop. In that case, even a strong hand like AK or JJ is a 58/42 favorite against a Villain playing top 10%, or 59/41 if Villain is playing top 12%. Decent odds, but not 67/33. And again, no guarantee that you get action when your hero hand arrives.

You're much more likely to have to shove with Ax or a mid-sized PP and hope that you win a flip. It's not an awful place to be, but you'll start getting wistful about the forgone flush draw that could have brought you to 40BB.

so I take it you advocate the "just call with the flush draw for the other half of your stack" option?

that's kinda what I feel as well, just wanted to see what other people thought.

find ways to avoid putting yourself in such a ****ty spot and you'll be fine

20bb and a NFD is auto-gii.

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