Puzzles
#06
Flop C-betting
Intermediate
30bb effective

Who owns the straights

Two flops, one card apart, with your hand and the pot held still. Nothing about A♠8♣ changes between them — only the number of straight draws the big blind can be holding — and that alone moves both how often you bet and how big. Graded DERIVED: the source states the direction of this effect, not a number.

  1. Flop

Hand info

Seats
BTN vs BB
Street
Flop
Pot
5.5 bb
Effective stack
27.5 bb
To call
Nothing — you may check

Single raised pot, no ante. Blinds 0.5 / 1. You opened the button to 2.5bb, the big blind called, and now checks to you. The source’s figures for this node are aggregated across 20bb / 30bb / 40bb.

Pot5.5 BB
D
HERO ·BTN
27.5 BB
SB
FOLD
BB
CHECK25 BB behind
UTG
FOLD
HJ
FOLD
CO
FOLD

FLOP · 27.5BB EFFECTIVE

FLOP · BB CHECKS

6-max table. Hero is BTN with 27.5 big blinds effective. FLOP: Ks, 8h, 3d. FLOP · BB CHECKS. Hero holds As and 8c.

Hand history

Flop

  • BTNRaises to 2.5 bb
  • SBFolds
  • BBCalls 1.5 bb
  • K♠ 8♥ 3♦ — pot 5.5 bb
  • BBChecks

The flop is K♠ 8♥ 3♦ and the big blind checks to you. Count what this board can make for them. A flopped straight needs all three board cards inside a five-rank window: the king and the eight are five ranks apart, the eight and the three another five, so no two hole cards complete anything — zero flopped straights. Now count open-enders, which need two board cards inside a four-card run: the closest pair here is still five apart, so there are none of those either. You hold middle pair with an ace kicker, and nothing in the big blind’s range is drawing at eight outs.

The big blind has checked. What do you do with A♠ 8♣?