Your basic strategy on-the-turn-strategy should include:
Betting, or checking with the intention of raising, when you’re sure you have the best hand.
Making it expensive for opponents who hold lesser hands, or who are on the come, to draw out on you.
Seeing the river as cheaply as possible when you’re on the come.
Betting if you think it will cause your opponent to fold.
Being alert to picking up a draw on the turn. It may allow you to continue playing a hand you otherwise should throw away.
Occasionally you’ll find yourself in a pot with lots of callers on the flop. Let’s say you hold 9-8 on the button, and flop 10-8-6. You don’t have top pair, your kicker is weak, and your draw is to an inside straight. Even so, with enough players calling the flop, you’re getting sufficient odds to take a card off the deck.
But suppose the turn card is a king. Suddenly there’s a bet up front, and most of the remaining players fold. Now you don’t have sufficient callers to supply the proper odds. Unless there’s already sufficient money in the pot to justify continuing, wait ‘till next hand.
If you’re in a $3-$6 game the cost has escalated to $6, or $12 if you’re raised. If you don’t improve you’re probably beaten. Even if you hit your hand, there’s one less round to extract extra bets from your opponents. If you made your straight on the turn and someone bets in front of you, your raise would trap your opponents for an additional bet, plus whatever you could extract on the last round of betting.
Should I Continue With My Draw?
Flopping a four-flush or an open-ended straight is a common situation. If it’s relatively inexpensive, you’ll invariably stay for the turn card — particularly when you’re certain yours will be the best hand if you make it. But most of the time the turn card won’t help you. After all, if you’ve flopped a four-flush there are only nine more cards of your suit remaining in the deck.
If you’ve flopped an open-ended straight draw, only eight of the remaining 47 cards will help you. You’ve got a 19 percent chance of making your flush on the turn, and a 17 percent chance of hitting your straight. Expressed in odds, you’re a 4.3-to-1 underdog to make your flush on the turn and a 4.9-to-1 underdog to make your straight. Most of the time, you’re going to have to decide whether to take another card off the deck. How should you go about doing this?
While some players stay with any draw all the way to the river, regardless of pot size or the number of opponents, there’s a better way to go about it. Here’s what to do. Estimate the current size of the pot as well as how many opponents will stick around and pay you off if you get lucky.
If the estimated payoff is 5-to-1 or better, then either of your draws will show a positive expectation in the long run. What does this mean? If you could replay this situation thousands of times you’d show a profit by making this play. If the estimated payoff was only 3-to-1, however, you’d show a loss in the long run.
The process of estimating pot odds versus the odds against hitting your hand can be confounded by the possibility that you’ll occasionally hit your hand and still lose. Suppose you’re holding A-Q of hearts and the flop is 7h-7d-6h. You’ve got a draw at the nut flush. But you may be up against a full house or a set that can improve to a full house. The presence of a pair on board should be a warning to any flush or straight draws.
It’s not a big issue. You can continue to play. Just make sure you have somewhat higher pot odds to offset those instances when you make your hand and lose with it.
Losing with the nut flush doesn’t happen all that often. When it does, you’ll know it. You’ll bet or raise, only to be raised, or reraised. Is it a bluff? Does your opponent have a full house or did he make the mistake of raising with a smaller flush than yours? You have to know your opponents. It’s no fun to throw away the nut flush in the face of an apparent full house, but against the kind of player who never makes a move unless he’s got the goods, I’ll toss my flush most of the time.
Sometimes you’ll make your flush, only to be up against another one. Your concern, of course, is whether yours is bigger. If you hold the nut flush, there’s no problem. You’re only dilemma is how to extract the maximum possible profit from your opponent. But if you called the flop with a hand like 10-9 suited, and make a flush on the turn. Sure, the bettor might have top pair, two pair or a set — all of which you can beat — but what does the raiser have? He could have a smaller flush than yours — or a bigger one. What should you do?
In most cases, you shouldn’t raise or reraise unless you’re sure you’ll have the best hand most of the time you’re called. Many seemingly adept players figure they can raise anytime they think they’ve got the best hand, never considering the possibilities that they could be reraised, rather than called. Because there is always the possibility that you’ll be beaten by an opponent who calls your raise, as well as the possibility that you might also be reraised, raise only when you have a hand that figures to win if it is called.
Read more about Texas Hold Em poker online game, 7 hand poker rules and poker ranking of hands.
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October 31, 2008
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