Poker Article: Texas Holdem Strategy - Pocket King Four Suited Hand

You are at seat # 3 at a table in the WSOP, with seats # 1 and # 2 empty, and the small blind at seat # 8, and the big blind at seat # 9. Seven active players are at your WSOP table, and only 2 tables remain (hence, you are deep into the WSOP tournament). You receive King four suited as your pocket hand. It is now up to you to bet first. Do you outright fold, do you call the big blind bet of 400 chips, do you raise beyond that, or even better, do you go all-in at this juncture ?

This should be an obvious decision for you, since pocket King-4 Suited only statistically wins at a rate of 3.9 %. Some inexperienced players will "dream" of getting a flush on this hand, but that is extremely risky business, and not practical from a probability standpoint. It is well known that when you are holding 2 cards of identical suit, the odds of getting 2 more cards of this same suit on the flop is a measely 11 %. And then, you will still need a card of the same suit on the turn or the river, to obtain your flush.

Looking at things even further, you have a King with a very low kicker. Even if you flop a King, with this less than desirable kicker card, you stand to be beaten by anyone else at the able who has a pair of Kings or a pair of Aces.

The prudent and practical move here is to fold this hand, conserve your chip total, and wait for the next hand to play on.