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What should be your strategy once you get a straight-flush [not to a high card as A♠or K♠] after the Flop itself. Keeping in mind the cards in the Flop are sequential.

Should one start raising or wait for Turn and River?

If someone else Raises after us is it a fair choice to fold or remain in game? Ie. if you suspect a bluff.

For example, Hero has 3♥4♥ and the flop brings 5♥6♥7♥ of same suit leading a straight flush to 7♥. Villain is suspected to have 8♥9♥.

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    Like most answers in poker: it depends...
    – Radu Murzea
    Mar 24, 2013 at 8:12
  • @RaduMurzea What do u mean? do i have to loose a bunch of chips and then think that it depends?
    – user851
    Mar 24, 2013 at 8:34
  • What I mean is that, in poker, a correct way to play a hand is subjective and depends A LOT on many factors. So the right way to play your straight flush depends on what type of opponents you're facing, what type of game it is, what your table image is, what their table image is etc. Obviously, folding such a strong hand is not an option. But when it comes to smaller hands (let's say 2 pair), then all those factors can make a huge difference: sometimes it makes sense to fold, other times pushing all-in is the best choice. Which is why the answer is always: it depends.
    – Radu Murzea
    Mar 24, 2013 at 10:19
  • Fold? The times your opponent has the higher straight flush are negligible. Ignore that possibility all together. Bad luck. Apparently you got the money in ... good. Don't second guess your play because of this bad luck. If you get it in, more often than not he'll have the nut flush. He won't give you credit for a straight flush. He might think about it, but he won't fold.
    – C G
    Mar 26, 2013 at 7:52
  • @ChristopheGeers: So you are saying that you would NEVER fold in this situation? What if it was a $100 pot, and your tight opponent who only ever raises with the nuts makes it $100,000 to go? ;-)
    – lnafziger
    Jun 5, 2013 at 16:54

5 Answers 5

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I think the odds that someone will have a higher straight flush is very very very low. If you got such a hand you should assume you will win it.

How to play? well, it depends on your position and the other players play (loose, tight, aggressive, etc.)

I think the following will be a good guidelines:

  • If you play against aggressive/loose players, let them act first. if they raise, its a good strategy to call them post flop and post turn (gives no information on your hand) and re-raise on the river.
  • If you are playing against tight players, I would suggest you to raise in a growing manner from post flop to river (with tight players, you will not see a raise unless they have a good hand).
  • in late position it is not suspicious that you play a little more aggressive. Players sees late position raises as normal behavior.
  • in early position you should be more cautious with your play (of course you should play like you play the previous hands (stay loose if you played loose..).

Anyway, you shouldn't fold in any case.

see this video. pay attention to the odds at 1:24 wsop 2008 amazing hand

Regards,
Amigal

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  • Damn that was a bad beat... I mean we should invent a new term: worst beat !
    – Radu Murzea
    Mar 24, 2013 at 8:16
  • @RaduMurzea or: "the worst beat".
    – Bogdan Doicin
    Apr 12, 2013 at 19:14
  • Are there any cases where one should worry about the possibility of being beat, e.g. you hold heart 8-9 and flop comes down heart T-J, spade A and two or three opponents bet consistent with their having top pair. Turn is heart Q (making your straight flush), but river is heart K. If three opponents actually paired the ace on the flop, one of them will have you beat.
    – supercat
    Jul 31, 2017 at 22:23
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The main goal will be to maximise your gain, but like most obvious flopped nuts, the only way to win lot of chips with this hands is praying for someone to have a strong flush draw and wanting to go for it.

I would bet ~1/3 of the pot and see if someone got hooked. Check/Call is not really an option because anyone with a hand under a flush will not put monney in the pot except if everybody is checking on the flop, on the turn and on the river.

Now, if you catch someone, there are always a slight chance you got beat by a superior straight flush but, that's poker and if you think like this, you will fold all your hands as soon as a better hand appears...

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Thinking about what to do when you have the nuts or near-nuts is a nice way to think through basic poker concepts. You can safely assume that all you want is for the most money possible to go into the pot.

Here there are two main questions to consider.

How strong is my opponent's range?

Here we need to know something about the preflop action. How much strength did your opponent show, and which sorts of hands does your opponent play in such a way? Note that many boards on which straight flushes are possible are boards for which the strong preflop hands are not the strongest hands on the flop. Note also that flopping a straight flush on a AKT board is not the same as flopping a straight flush on a 765 board: in the former case, you will tend to be happiest if your opponent showed a lot of strength before the flop, because he is likelier to have the sorts of hands that will pay you off.

After you go through this reasoning, you should usually be more inclined to play aggressively if your opponent figures to often have a hand that can stand aggression. Note, however, that aggressive play will often be correct even if your opponent does not figure to have too much: especially when he figures to want to get to showdown cheaply, which will often be the case on monotone boards, you have to put the money in yourself if you want the money to go in the pot at all.

How can I keep my range the widest?

In other words: how can I represent weaker hands? Here again we need to know more about the preflop action. Often betting is more deceptive than not betting, and slowplaying your hand will often make your opponent think that you cannot have the hands that you want him to think you have.

If you want a quick and dirty rule: it will usually be best to go ahead and play aggressively, hoping that your opponent has something to pay you off with. Here as always, however, there is no substitute for thinking through the hand and what each player has represented with the action up to the decision.

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If You flop the straight flush, Your opponent can beat You with exactly one hand. Since we saw 5 card, there are 47 other cards int the deck, or at your opponents. The chance the villain(Lets say you are HU at this point) has the better straight flush is 1/(47*46/2) ~ 0.09% So your oppenent will be better once in every 1000 time you flop the minimal possible straight flush.

Folding a hand like this is not an option, You should just make the pot as big as You can.

You can believe You are playing with the nuts in these situations. amigal's answer is a good summary of what can you do in these cases.

Btw, if the exrta rake isn't too high for your limits, You can play at Bad Beat Jackpot tables, where a weaker straight flush can bring you much more money than a big pot.

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If you flop a straight flush, and your aim isn't to get all in by the river, you're playing too tight.

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