Double Belly Busters - The Doyle Brunson Way!

[kompressaur]

I don't know if im just being affected but ive added added any suited hand within 5 cards of each other to my poker repotoire after reading this. I will read it again and consider this as i aint been thinking too straight lately with all the frontpage hassles.

Double Belly-Buster Straight
Another of my favorites is a hand where you can flop a two-way inside or double belly-buster straight. It’s one of the most deceptive hands there is, and I especially like it in no-limit. It has all the advantages of an open-end straight, but it’s not as easy to read. Because it’s so deceptive, I almost always raise with it when I can win a big pot. For example, say you have a Q-10 and the flop comes A-J-8. As you can see, it’s very deceptive because you can make a straight with a 9 or a king. What’s more, if you catch a king and there’s someone with A-K in the pot with you, you can see all the trouble he’s in. Since double belly-busters are such good gambling hands, you might find the following quick rule of thumb useful:

It’s possible to flop a double bellybuster with any two cards that are part of a straight, such as 7-6, 8-6, 9-6, and 10-6. Also, two cards with five gaps between them such as a Q-6 can also flop a double belly-buster draw. In the supplement at the end of this section you’ll find a complete rundown on all the hands that have double belly-buster potential. When you flop a double belly-buster draw, you should make careful note of which of your possible straights will be the nuts. For example, if you have a J-9 and the fall is K-10-7, both an 8 and a queen will make you a straight. However, only the 8 will give you the nuts. If a queen falls on fourth, someone with an A-J can beat your straight. So you must be careful— especially in no-limit play—and you must know how to read the board perfectly in order to recognize what hand is the absolute nuts. Practice at home until you don’t make a single mistake. You’ll learn quick enough if you get broke a few times with what you thought was the nuts but turned out to be only the second best hand. Look again at the example above. A player with a J-9 could easily think he had the best straight when the queen fell until someone showed him an A-J for all his money.

An easy way to determine whether your straight is the nuts is by following some simple guidelines. You’ll have the nut straight if:

(1) The high-end of the straight is made up with the highest card in your hand; or

(2) The high-end of the highest possible straight is already on the board. Drawing to a double belly-buster is one of few situations in no-limit where you might be drawing to an inside straight that won’t make the best hand.

As I noted earlier, inside straight draws can be real good plays in no-limit hold’em because for a few chips you have the opportunity to win a very big pot. But you almost never draw to a single belly-buster straight that will not be the best hand if you make it. They’re long-shot plays, so when you do make them, you want to be sure they’re the nuts. For example, let’s say you held Q-J and the fall was 9-8-4. Now you might want to draw at that belly-buster, trying to catch a 10 or make a big pair (even in limit, but mostly in no-limit). You know if you catch that 10, you’ll have a cinch hand. But if you held a 6-5, you’d never draw to it with that flop because there’d be two differen t straights that could beat you if you catch a 7, the 6-7-8-9-10 and the 7-8-9-10-J. If a man makes a straight with you, he’s either got you tied or he’s got you beat. So, you never draw to the dead-end of a single belly-buster.

Before you decide to draw to a belly-buster, you also want to be reasonably certain that your opponent is going to gamble with you if you do make it. I mean, drawing to a belly-buster is a good play, but only if you can win a big pot by making your long shot. So you want your opponent to have the best hand possible on the board. If the flop came 9-8-4, as above, ideally, you want your opponent to have three nines. You don’t want him to have a pair of kings or A-9. You want him to have at least eights and nines, or better. You want him to have a very big hand. Your Q-J would be a very good hand against three nines. It wouldn’t be as good against a pair of nines because it won’t make enough money. Your opponent will release a pair far more readily than he’ll release a set. So if you can get in real cheap and have the potential to win a big pot, bellybuster straights are good gambles. But you also have to be very selective about the belly-busters you do draw to. You don’t want it to be apparent to your opponent that you ould’ve made a straight. In the illustration just used, you might not get the action you want if a 10 falls off on fourth street. The QJ is actually a weak hand when the flop is 9-8-4. Your opponent might put you on a 7-6 and, when the 10 came, he might be very leery about calling a big bet you made. The straight possibility might even scare him off completely. But if a possible straight wasn’t so apparent when the 10 came off, you could probably win a lot of money. Let’s say you had the Q? 9?, and the flop was J-8-2. You might want to pick the 10 off there because that would be a very deceptive belly-buster draw. And inside straights like these are the ones you want to draw for to win a big pot because they aren’t so obvious.

[kompressaur]

read more of Doyle's Super Sytem 2 here
http://www.katzforums.com/showthread...ighlight=poker