In almost every scenario in Limit Hold’em, nailing a flush draw pretty much guarantees that you’ll win the pot. Of course you will need plenty of help from the board, and even more help from your own poker knowledge to hit these flush draws.
The first thing to understand with flush draws is that there are 9 cards left in the deck (13 of each suit) which can give you a flush by the river. After doing some math, this means that you’ve got about a 35% chance of making your flush which isn’t bad odds in poker – especially when you factor pot odds into the equation. Of course, there are other things to consider with flush draws so don’t go making the call based solely on pot odds.
One of these situations is when the board flops a pair because there is almost assuredly going to be someone with a set. Calling or raising here is risky because you’re already behind and, even if you do hit the flush, the other player could hit a full house by the river.
Another situation where it’s a bad move to call with a flush draw based on pot odds is when you’ve flopped a low flush draw and several other players are remaining in the hand. In this case, there is probably one or two other players trying to hit that flush draw and there’s a good chance they’ll be ahead of you with a higher flush.
Other factors to take into account when going for your flush draw is obviously how many players are in the hand and your position. You want to keep lots of players in the hand without having to pay too much to see cards in early position. This means you should check and call as much as possible to keep other around so you’ll be able to maximize on your flush later on (assuming you hit it).
In late position, you have more options since you’ve seen what has occurred before. For instance, if an early player makes a raise and several players call with you holding suited KQ then you might consider a raise here. The reasoning is that you have a chance to win the hand with overcards as well as with a flush draw, and you’re almost guaranteed to get a caller or two. You’ll want to keep an eye out for other situations like this in the future too.
