The thing that makes combo draws so powerful is their highly disguised nature. Straight draws in particular can be very powerful, as they are much more deceptive than flush draws (which is one reason why the latter should be often played faster than the former).
Let’s say you three-bet a tight UTG raiser with 3s-4s and he calls. You are both 200BB deep. Your read is that he’s a bad tight player who overvalues big pocket pairs. On a flop of Js-7h-3s he checks to you and you have to check it back because you hate getting check-raised here, especially as you’ll have to fold to his shove on the turn given the stacks. You check it back. In his eyes A-A/K-K/Q-Q looks like the absolute nuts if a Three or a Four rolls off on the turn, plus any spade now looks way less dangerous (especially if he holds one too). In other words, you’re going to get paid off.
Punishing trappers
Some of the biggest pots occur when you turn combo draws against habitual slow-players when deep-stacked. The best cards to hit here are backdoor draws (especially straight draws) which are so tough to read. Let’s say you three-bet small to isolate a weak-tight regular with Ad-4d on the button when 150BB deep. He calls and you see a flop of Ks-4h-9d. He checks, you make a continuation bet and he calls. The turn is a wonderful card, the 3d. He checks, you bet small so you don’t get blown off by a check-raise but you can still get most of your stack in on the river if he calls and you hit or you decide to three-barrel bluff. The river is the ultimate card, the 2c. In these spots, when your opponent’s range is pretty much locked as A-K/K-Q or slow-played sets or Aces, they will almost always pay off a river shove. Apart from 9-9, A-A and A-K, what can you have that goes for three streets and stacks off? Your hand looks like the nuts or air and you almost certainly stack him when you jam.
The great thing about combo draws is the flexibility of the hand. You have a lot of options on multiple streets, whereas with one-pair hands you generally need to decide how big a pot you are prepared to play on the flop, as soon as it looks like the pot might get big.
Read Part I
Read Part III