posted April 28, 2009 at 18:03 EST in Poker School Texas Hold'em
Limit Hold’em Strategy - Playing the Turn Part I
by BetUS Staff
Most experts agree that the turn is the most difficult street to play in Limit Hold’em Poker. It’s a combination of a couple things: the bets are bigger, meaning the out-and-out aggression most players favor on the flop is too expensive, and there is still another card to come, which makes the turn more complicated than the river. In this series of articles I will try to lead you through the complexities of turn play, with the ultimate goal of creating a balanced strategy that you can adjust to exploit poor players. In Part I, we’ll take a look at playing the turn in position without a very strong hand.
One of the most common and difficult turn situations arises when you’re in the lead preflop and then get check-raised on the flop. Let’s say that you have AK and open the action with a raise on the button. The big blind calls and the flop comes T63. He checks, you bet, and he raises. You simply have to call here; assuming that you have 6 outs, the odds against you hitting [link to poker odds chart] are approximately 7:1. The pot is offering you 7.5:1, making a call correct, but even more important than the straight pot odds calculation are two other considerations: 1) you may be ahead even if you don’t hit, and 2) your strategy would be far far far too predictable if you always folded in situations like this, where you missed the flop when in the lead preflop.
After the necessary flop call in a situation like this, which you must make even if your opponent is quite tight, the real decision comes on the turn. If you hit your ace or king, it’s easy, you raise his bet. If he fails to follow through with a turn bet and you miss, it’s also easy: you just check behind and probably call on the river if he then decides to bet. The tricky part is when you miss and your opponent bets, which is the most common outcome. The correct decision in this situation depends on a few things:
1) What card came on the turn? Does it complete any draws or scare you for any other reason? In the example hand, a 4,5,7,8 or 9 would be scary because your opponent will often make a pair or a straight if he is on an inside straight draw.
2) Will our opponent bet again on the river if he’s bluffing? Will he bet again with only a small pair?
3) Is our opponent more likely to be bluffing or to have hit a pair on the flop?
If the turn card is scary, it is often correct to fold. Your chances of hitting are still approximately 7:1, and the pot is now offering only 5.25:1, because of the larger bet size on the turn. Additionally, one pair may not even be good if you hit. If the turn card is not scary, you may still have the best hand.
If your opponent will bet again on the river when bluffing, you should be less inclined to call. The reason is that you will have another difficult to decision on the river if you miss. On the other hand, if he won’t fire a third barrel (make a third bluff bet), you’re only facing one more potential bet, and a call becomes very attractive. If he’ll bet again with a small pair, again, you should be less inclined to call, for very much the same reason. To sum up, if your opponent will often check the river, you should usually call, if he is likely to bet the river, folding is usually better.
Of course, if your opponent bluffs too much you want to call, whereas if he’s conservative with his bets and rarely bluffs, you should much prefer a call.
As a final note, you don’t want to always be folding in situations like this, because it makes it too easy and cheap for opponents to bluff against you. You should sometimes call down even when a scary card comes as well, because opponents will pick up on that tendency too.
