The Illuminated Donkey

A Poker Lesson. Blogger and poker player Paul Frankenstein writes in to ask when the proper time would be to draw to an inside straight (Also known as a gutshot, an inside straight draw has four cards to a straight with only one possible way to complete it; for example: 8-9-J-Q, with a Ten needed. This is as opposed to an open-ended draw, such as 6-7-8-9, where two cards can complete the straight.) Always glad to help out, Paul!

Now, I'm sure a number of you are jumping out of your chairs to scream Never! "Never draw to an inside straight" is a rule of thumb repeated countless times by crusty old barkeeps and wizened uncles, but its renown has long outlasted its accuracy. The truth is that it is often the correct move to draw to an inside straight, but only if the pot odds are correct.

Simply put, pot odds are the odds of making your hand in comparison to the amount of money in the pot. Like any type of gambling, the better odds you get, the more money you're likely to win. In nearly all casino games (the exceptions being blackjack with an advanced card-counting strategy and certain types of video poker with good jackpot systems), you are getting paid anywhere from slightly to far less than what your actual odds of winning are. In American roulette, your odds of picking a winning number are 1/38, but you would get paid out as if the odds were 1/36 (the difference between these two figures is why Las Vegas is so darn big and shiny).

How this works in poker is if you have, say, a 1/10 chance of getting the card you need (based on how many of the card remain in the deck — much easier in a game like stud where you see many of your opponents cards — as opposed to the total number of remaining cards), and there is already $150 in the pot, then it would make sense to call a $10 bet. Conversely, if there was only $50 in the pot, you wouldn't be getting correct odds and shouldn't call the bet.

The "never draw to an inside straight" rule dates back to an era of five-card draw and stud, where there would almost never be enough in the pot to justify the long odds of drawing to an inside straight; in today's more common games of Texas Hold `Em and seven-card stud, this is not always the case, and it can be profitable to draw to the forbidden inside straight. While actually being able to calculate these odds on the fly is pretty hard, you should keep this general idea in mind when determining whether or not to continue with a hand.

So good luck to you, Paul, except when you're playing me!

Update: here's a Card Player Magazine article about gutshots, with some Hold `Em examples.