In this case, you have a hand higher than the highest hand on the board. To illustrate, let us tell you a brief story about Smitty, a good guy from a home game Doug used to play in. He likes to play what became known to the group as “Smitty Hands,” which would be small suited or one-gap cards. Through an online promotional tournament, Smitty won a $5,000 seat in the initial Borgata World Poker Tour no-limit Hold ’em main event. He was going along well, until he got into a hand against top pro Layne Flack. Smitty held 3♥-5♥, while Layne held a pair of Tens. The flop came, as shown in this Figure:
It’s better to have a made hand than a draw
At this point, Layne had the overpair of Tens and Smitty the top pair on board and a straight flush draw (any Ace, Six, Five, or heart would have won Smitty the pot, actually). Flack had more chips than Smitty and bet enough to put him all-in. Statistics demonstrate that Smitty held a 65 to 35 percent advantage after the flop because of his draws, but in this case, he failed to improve and Layne busted him out. We’ll talk more about the statistics surrounding such danger flops a little later in this chapter.