Open-Ended, Gutshot, Back-Door
The gutshot straight draw, the back-door flush and the open-ended straight draw. What do these mean?
The gutshot refers to drawing to one card to a straight. Say you hold 56 in your hand and the board is 79J. An eight will give you a 56789 straight, you are drawing to one of four eights and you have a gutshot straight draw.
The much better draw odds-wise is the open-ended straight draw. Here you have say 78 and the board is 69K. Now you have 6789 for the straight and will make your “open-ender” with either a 5 or a 10. Now you have eight outs to make your hand. The open-ender hits twice as often as the gutshot and you should take that into consideration when you make your decision to check, raise or fold before the turn and river cards.
The back-door flush or the back-door straight is simply when you need two cards after the flop to make your hand. You hold 5h6d and the board is 7hKdQc, you have terrible odds to continue with this hand. You make a straight only if the last two cards are 34, 48 or 89. You make a flush if the last two cards are both hearts or both diamonds. Not that these are winning flushes or even winning straights but when you make your hand by getting both a favorable turn and another miracle on the river; we call that a Back-Door. You will also hear players refer to getting two cards like this as making a “Runner-Runner”.
Just a bit more poker terminology to help you sound and act like a pro!
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #54
