Drawing Hands
“Drawing hands” are hands that aren’t hands than the opener, but they have enough potential for improvement that they should usually be played when at least one other player has called the opener,giving you at least two opponents.
Once that has happened, you’re getting much better pot odds on your call.
Although the hand usually won’t prevail, it will win often enough to make it worth playing.
Most of the dominated power hands, along with some slightly weaker hands, have value as drawing hands. As an example, let’s look at a hand like K 
9 .
If there is an early position opener, the chances of them having a hand like A 
K 
or even K J or 10 10 will diminish the high card value of K 9 .
There is also some chance that the early position opener has a hand like Q J , where your K 9 would be in fairly good shape in a confrontation.
By itself this chance isn’t enough to be worthwhile, but adding the odds you’re getting from just a couple of callers to flop a flush draw or even two pair will often make a hand like K 9 well worth playing.
Note that with just a few callers giving you odds, you don’t need much of a chance that your hand is best. You just need some chance, with fairly good drawing chances.
Drawing hands are usually playable when you have two to five other players in the pot. This gives you fairly good odds on a call.
However, if the players in the pot are mostly players who tend to play fairly well after the flop, some of the drawing hands might not be profitably played.
Exactly how many callers you will need depends on how poorly and how loose they play after the flop.
Against good players, two callers probably won’t yield enough odds, although two callers are probably enough against poor players.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
