Draw

A draw is a hand one card short. A flush draw: four cards of one suit, a fifth needed. A straight draw: four in a row, a fifth from either end, or with a gap in the middle, when only one rank will do. Right now you have not even a pair, and at a showdown this second you lose to almost everything. But you are not playing this second, you are playing to the river.

A draw's price is counted in outs, the cards that complete it: a flush draw has nine, an open-ended straight draw eight. From the flop a flush comes in about 35% of the time, from the turn about 20%. Draws are the main reason for semi-bluffing: the bet wins by a fold now or a card later, and the two ways together are worth more than either alone.

An example from session 8

T♦9♦ on a board of A♠ 2♦ 7♦ K♠: a diamond flush draw, one card to come. I bet $12, the full pot. On folds alone the bet does not pay, it gets folds too rarely. But by theory this hand bets here nine times in ten, more often half the pot than the whole, and there is no verdict. A draw grants the right to bet where air has none.

The same in business

A draw is a venture with no revenue yet but a countable chance of getting it. It is worth exactly the cards that complete it times the pot, and not a cent more. The mistake is not investing in draws but valuing one as a made hand: showing the investor a flush when the board has four diamonds.

The whole hand is in session 8: “A move out of turn says something about you that you did not mean to say”.

The other terms are in the glossary.