Ask Adam: Advice playing Flush Draws

[BigPhish]

Adam, (please, give ATE a chance to answer!)

I've taken to doing this at low-buy in MTT's. $2.50, $5.00, down there on the low end. Seems to work, but I'd appreciate thoughts to improve.

Let's say for this example, I'm average or better chip stack at the table.

I'm dealt a reasonably good suited hand. How good it needs to be to get me into the game depends on my position, my stack size, and how much I need to pay to see the flop. But anyway, let's assume that I pay to take the flop with A or K high, suited. I might have raised PF but if I did, it wasn't a monster raise. Raising anything less than 50% of my chips doesn't seem to do much at these tables and I'm not about to raise that much of my stack on a flush draw hand preflop.

Flop shows two of my suit. There are usually a lot of others in the hand at this point, this being low buy-in and all. Say maybe 4-5 others see the flop with me.

On the flop, one of two things happens. Either someone raises before me or it checks around to me. Either way, I bet the pot. This tends to thin out about half the field. Of course if someone's all-in before me, I'm probably not calling unless I'm 100% confident that they are on a stone cold bluff.

So anyway, we're now on the turn with maybe 2 others and a pretty good pot. One of two things happened on the turn. I either made my flush or I didn't.

If I hit my flush but don't have the nut flush, I'll usually push in. If someone else has Ax of the same suit, well, they can win. That's pretty unlikely though.

If I hit the flush and I have the nuts... or I don't hit the flush, I bet half the pot. In the first case, I obviously want people to call or raise. If they raise, I usually call. If they raise too big, I usually push in.

In the case I didn't hit my flush and bet 1/2 pot, I usually get a lot of calls, very rarely get raised (which I usually call), and sometimes get raised all-in (which I think real hard about before usually folding).

So let's say we get to the river and I'm not all-in yet. But say I do have my flush made by now.

My decision here is how much I think my remaining opponents might call. If I think they're nuts enough to call an all-in with me obviously holding a flush (based on the board and how I played it), I'm putting them in. Otherwise I bet about 10% more than I think they'll call (because they tend to call a lot more frequently than I think they would).

This has worked pretty well for me recently. I sometimes have runs where I make this exact same play several times at the same table and they just follow along, giving me chips. Only once did someone seem to recognize my pattern and fold on the flop.

Anyway, I know that as I increase the difficulty of the games I buy into, I'm going to need to vary my play here somewhat.

Other than switching things up, what would you suggest?

Thanks!

[AdamtheExpert]