Archive for the ‘Games’ Category
Looking for More Info About Where to Play Legal Poker - Study the Materials
The number one consideration, from the point of view as an attorney, is whether or not the game is legal. Laws vary from state to state in the U.S., in many others the game is legal as long as ALL of the money goes to the players. If a non-player is getting a fee for hosting, dealing, promoting, or arranging the game, you may be in trouble.
Next, think long and hard about whether you will be playing primarily for fun or for profit. Of course you want to have fun either way, but the stakes, players, and types of games may not suit both objectives equally. For example, sometimes I play in a Friday-afternoon, No-Limit Hold’em, single-table tournament with business contacts.
On the other hand, you may see the home game as another source of income. If so, keep these principles in mind:
Games with wild cards or too many cards increase the luck factor, so they are bad from a profit-seeking perspective. From time to time, my usually conservative home game degenerates and someone deals “Lotsa Pasta.” For those who haven’t yet had the displeasure, this idiotic game is played like Omaha hi-low, but with each player receiving 6, 7, or even 10 cards, depending on how many participants there are. Generally, the first cry of “Lotsa Pasta” is my signal to head home. The readers who play a lot of Omaha know what a river game it is, but in Lotsa Pasta, quads and straight flushes are downright common.
Don’t play for profit with people with significantly less regard for the dollar than you have. That means people who are much wealthier, as well as people who typically gamble for much higher stakes. You won’t be able to bet them out, but they may be able to bluff you out when they raise or re-raise the maximum. My home game went through a rough stretch when someone (we haven’t yet been able to convict the guilty party)invited a guy who convinced a majority to raise the stakes significantly, then raised the new maximum as often as he could. Yes, sometimes his bluffs were called, but occasionally he had the goods and people were going home much more down than usual. He was an “empty-nester,” with plenty of disposable income, and our $10 and $20 bets were chicken feed to him (rumor had it that he often bet $1,000 on a single football game). Finally, common sense prevailed, we returned to our former betting limits, and he thankfully lost interest and stopped playing.
Play in a secure location, and have everyone agree not to talk about the game too loosely. Nothing draws thieves like cash outside of a bank with no cop in sight. Some thieves are stupid, but most can do elementary arithmetic. In a $10-$20 game, each player will probably bring $200 to $1,000. A thief who sees eight cars knows that no matter who’s winning or losing, there’s between $2,000 and $9,000 in cash on a table inside, plus watches, rings, etc., and probably no security cameras. Think it can’t happen? Consider all of the convenience store heists you’ve heard about, even though those stores DO have security cameras, and the usual policy is to keep no more than $50 in the register.
Don’t be afraid to leave when you are ahead. If you initially decided to play for profit, take your profit and go home to enjoy it. We all know that no matter how good you are at poker, the luck element always exists. Whether you will admit it or not, generally you have gotten at least a little lucky on a profitable night, and luck tends to flow around a hand.
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Looking for More Info About High Low Stud Poker Game - Study the Advice
The explosion in popularity of hold’em was a major factor in the decline of Seven-Card Stud (high). The increased bluffing possibilities in hold’em, along with a perception of Stud as a “fold fest,” dramatically reduced the number of Stud players. In fact, many of today’s young hold’em players may have never been exposed to Stud high.
High-Low Stud, however, has more of a following, as it should. High-low has many more subtleties than high-only, and there is usually much more action. And for those who love to bluff, high-low can satisfy the craving.
There are two basic ways to define the best low hand. In many casinos, A-2-3-4-5 (a “wheel”) is the best, as straights and flushes do not disqualify the low hand. In other venues, however, a straight or flush cannot be played as a low, so A-2-3-4-6 is the best low. When in doubt, ask the dealer before beginning play so as to avoid a very costly mistake!
There is usually an “8″ qualifier. In other words, a hand cannot be considered a low unless it contains five different cards from A to 8. For example, if a player has A-J-3-5-7-J-7 on the river, he has no low hand and jacks up for high. Finally, if there is more than one qualifying low hand, the winner is determined by comparing them card by card, starting with their highest ones.
A novice may think that high-low is superior to high-only because the high hand can collect multiple bets made by opponents who chase, but do not fill, a low hand. Actually, the opposite is true. The hands that win the biggest pots in high-low are seven cards from which the player can make a qualifying low as well as a flush, straight, or trips.
In high-low, therefore, the emphasis should be on playing only hands that have strong two-way possibilities. On Third Street, discard starters such as 9-J-9, 10-10-A, and even K-K-4. A big pair is a very dangerous start in high-low, and I don’t mean dangerous to your opponents. Even a pair of aces can cost you plenty, especially if the third card is a nine or higher. You may think you can raise with aces and at least win the bring-in, perhaps a limper’s call. However, the only experienced player likely to call a Third Street raise is someone with a great two-way start, such as 2-3-4, 3-4-5, 4-5-6, or A-2-3, or of course the rare rolled hand, three of a kind.
Still unconvinced? A-A-10 is only a slight favorite over A-2-3, 2-3-4, 3-4-5, or 4-5-6, depending on what cards are showing in others’ hands (61%-39% to 57%-43%). A-A-10 is about an 82%-18% underdog to 5-5-5 or other rolled-up hands. Sure, rolled-up hands are rare, but they are not your only worries. Remember the cardinal principle of high-low: A hand with three cards over 8 can never be low, but a collection of low cards can become a high. Most of the cards in the deck (32 out of 52, or 62%) are low cards, and once your opponent has a made low, he is freerolling! He can bet or raise into your high hand with utter fearlessness, knowing that the worst that can happen to him is a split pot.
Speaking of rolled-up hands…they are golden in high-only, but can be disastrous in high-low. A hand like A-A-A, 5-5-5, or 6-6-6 (the latter being known as the “Mark of the Beast” in my home game) has an outside shot at producing a low to go with the trips-or-better high, but basically all are one-way hands. 5-5-5 is slightly less vulnerable because it severely limits the chance of another player making a straight (recall that every straight MUST contain a 5 or a 10). Rolled-up high hands (trip nines, tens, jacks, queens, or kings) are strictly one-way hands on which you can lose a TON of money when they don’t improve and an opponent drawing low hits a straight or flush.
What you want to see when you are dealt a rolled hand is lots of high door cards around the table, so you can raise and either win immediately or narrow your competition to someone drawing low who will fold when he hits a high (”brick”) card on Fourth Street and perhaps someone with a higher pair than your door card who will give you action when he hits two pair.
“What?” you reply. “I finally get a rolled-up hand and you advise me to raise, taking the risk that everyone will FOLD?” Yes, Tonto, and the horse you rode in on! Trip kings, for example, are only about a 2-to-1 favorite against A-2-3, 2-3-4, 3-4-5, or 4-5-6…on Third Street. Depending on the other players’ door cards, there can be as many as 29 remaining cards that will enable your opponent to fill his low…and start pounding you with bets or raises! He knows you are going high with a K door card.
ANY card you get on Fourth Street (other than the case K) is meaningless to you, but any non-matching low card he gets on Fourth Street gives him four to a low and perhaps three or four to a straight or flush. For example, you get a Q on Fourth Street, which increases your opponent’s odds of getting a low card. Sure enough (the poker gods have a wicked sense of humor!) he gets a 7 to go with his 4-5-6 or 3-4-5. Now you’re not getting him out with dynamite! You’ll feel as if you HAVE to bet, since you can’t give him a free card toward a straight or flush, but a savvy opponent may raise you, especially if the card he needs to fill his straight is completely live. Remember: He knows which way you are going, but you are hoping all he has is a low draw. In poker, as in war, inequality of information often dooms the ignorant party.
But, as they say, it gets worse. On Fifth Street you get another brick (no full house), but your opponent’s showing cards become 4-5-7, 4-6-7, or even 3-4-7. Is he freerolling? Does he already have a straight, in which case your lovely rolled kings have suddenly become a 4-to-1 UNDERDOG? Or does he have two pair, and bets or raises to bluff you? You don’t know.
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More Knowledge About Problematic Pairs in Poker - Learn the Knowledgebase
What are we hoping for when we see a flop with a small pair? A set, of course, or better. But as many of us know, the odds of flopping a set, even if both of the “money” cards are live, are only about one in eight. Moreover, a small percentage of the time when we DO flop a set, we will be ehind, so the odds of flopping a set AND being ahead are probably closer to one in nine.
Presto has its followers, including me from time to time. However, the smaller your pocket pair, the higher the odds of being behind on the flop even if you were ahead preflop, as Tim was. When you play presto, any one of 36 overcards could flop and put you in catch-up mode. Suppose Guy was making a move with A7 off, for example. The 2 2 7 flop looked safe for Tim, but it would have been deadly.
Lest presto’s fans think I’m picking on their favorite, I think my comments apply to all small pairs and most medium pairs, too. Remember that the 8 is the middle rank in the deck. When you play a pocket pair smaller than eights, not only could you be outflopped, but there is much more of a chance that two or more overcards could flop. Suppose the flop had been Q J 2, or T 8 3, or any number of other combinations including two overcards to Tim’s fives.
The third problem was position. It’s much safer to call with a small-to-medium pair when you act last after the flop. Let’s reverse the players’ positions in the example above. After the 2 2 7 flop, it is almost a certainty that Guy would have put more chips in the pot. That wouldn’t have been a mere continuation bet. Guy would have been fairly sure that Tim, a very good player, didn’t call his preflop raise with 72, so he wouldn’t have been unreasonable if he thought that his Big Slick was in the lead. However, Tim could have gone all-in and made it very difficult for Guy to call. If Guy folded after a flop bet, the win would have almost doubled Tim’s stack.
As Clint Eastwood so famously said, “I know what you’re thinking.” You think I’m being too conservative (a nice term for “pansy”). We’ve all heard and read that any pocket pair is a big hand in a short-handed game. Also, in the edited TV broadcast there was no indication of how much garbage Tim had seen since his last premium hand. After a slew of 73, T2, 84, and similar trash hands, presto can look…well, magical.
However, I’m drawing on something profound I read years ago in “Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Holdem” by T. J. Cloutier and Tom McAvoy. Those poker giants agreed to disagree on small pocket pairs. Tom favors seeing the flop with them because he can get away from those hands easily if he doesn’t flop a set. T. J. feels that in the long run they waste more of your chips than they gain for you, so he doesn’t like to call preflop raises with small pairs. My approach is a hybrid position. I like to see flops with pocket pairs in the early to middle stages of a tournament. At the end, however, I’d rather wait for a premium hand or two paint cards. I can get away from KQ, KJ, or QJ after a non-helpful flop just as easily, or more easily, than a small or medium pocket pair, and if I pair some paint there’s a much higher probability that I’m in the lead.
Finally, think of small pairs in relation to the hands your opponents are likely to play. How many thousands of times have you seen someone raise, call a raise, or go all-in late in a tournament with any ace or a suited king? When an opponent does that, what does he NOT want you to have? A big pair or a bigger ace or king, right? Aren’t you doing exactly what he wants you to do when you call with two small cards? Sure, you’re a mathematical favorite with your pocket pair, but he has at least three outs times five, and if he catches one early you only have two outs for a re-draw.
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Looking for More Knowledge About the Reason for Losing in Poker - Reed the Advice
A losing poker player, or even a good player in the throes of some particularly bad luck, will blame anyone or anything. His opponents are chasing morons who keep getting lucky (that has a familiar ring, huh?). Someone must be marking the deck, peeking at his hole cards or otherwise cheating him (this mindset, coupled with a liberal sprinkling of alcohol, is one of the main reasons why casinos need security personnel). The cocktail waitress is too slow, etc.
And then of course, when all else fails, there’s always the dealer. The person who keeps flinging those crappy cards in his direction MUST be doing it on purpose. Never mind that there are hundreds of “eyes in the sky”, that the dealer has no stake in seeing any particular player win or that many casinos today use mechanical shufflers. The loser is convinced that his poor performance is the dealer’s fault and it’s no use trying to discuss any logic with him. Logic only works on calm, sensible people, and a poker player in the midst of a losing streak bears no resemblance to either one.
Sometimes the blame takes a supernatural turn. The player realizes that it is ridiculous to imply that the dealer is deliberately giving him “silver-medal” or worse cards, so he falls back on voodoo.
No, ladies and germs, it’s definitely NOT the dealer. And while bad luck does happen, usually the blame is properly placed right between the loser’s eyes. If he’s playing online, that’s usually easy enough to verify if he’ll order a history of his last 100 or 200 hands.
1. At most, you’ll flop a flush with two suited cards once every 113 hands, assuming that no one else has been dealt a card of that suit. And when you DO flop it, how confident will you be that your 9-high flush will hold? More often, you’ll flop a flush draw and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you won’t win much playing that way.
“But,” the loser retorts, “the flush wasn’t my only way to win.” Well, I sit corrected. He did have a 0.3% chance of flopping two pairs and a 0.2% chance of flopping trips (again assuming no one else had been dealt a 9 or a 4). Not that either hand would even be the nuts necessarily, but… my bad.
2. Chasing bad straight draws. When you’re losing, you almost always have a string of near-misses. For example, you have 87 suited, see a flop cheaply and it’s T 7 6. You don’t have a flush draw, but you have middle pair, bad kicker, and a gutshot straight draw. A good player can fold this hand to anything other than a tiny bet, but a bad player (or one who’s just playing badly) will call on that flop, call again on a no-help turn like a 2 (or even worse, a J, 7, or 6), and then moan after the session about how he “couldn’t hit any draws.”
3. Another bleeder is the bad-kicker hand. Any regular reader of my sometimes lame articles knows how much I detest ace-rag*, but how many times have you heard this loser’s lament? “I flopped aces, so I HAD to call.” Correction, Charlie, you didn’t even have to see the flop. When you have A3, for example, and the flop contains an ace and no 3, there’s a good chance you’re drawing dead or on life-support. I don’t understand the aversion to throwing A-rag away preflop. It’s not a good hand and even worse, it can cost you lots of money. Remember that when you are playing cards of two different ranks, most of the time it’s better to pair your lower card, as long as that’s the top or middle card in the flop. For example, you have K8. Wouldn’t you rather see an 8 5 3 flop than a K 5 3?
The lower your bottom card, the less chance it has of giving you top pair or even middle pair on the flop. What are you hoping to see with A3? Are you hoping to see a 3 2 2 flop?
4. A fourth category of contributors to “one of those days” is the pocket pair that’s an underpair to the flop. Sure, your TT started with some promise, and you properly raised to try to get the fools to release their precious A-rag and K-rag hands, but then that damn dealer — the one who never deals you a winner - had to go and spread that Q J 7 flop. Sure, you MIGHT still be in the lead. That bettor in early position and the caller before you MIGHT be on draws or just bluffing.
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Find Out More Info Psychology of Playing Poker Online
Online poker often takes a back seat whenever credit is given for the recent poker explosion. The lipstick camera, the World Poker Tour and Chris Moneymaker are the usual reasons mentioned. For those who play, though, there’s no denying the contribution made by poker sites.
With the ability to play any time of day or night in the comfort of their own home, players could sit down to the virtual felt for a few hands or a few hours depending on how much time they had. With hands being dealt much quicker than in a brick or mortar card room, a player could gain as much experience in six months as would have previously taken years.
There is one area of online play, however, that is simply not available in most card rooms. It’s a game that is just not practical to offer in a brick and mortar casino and I find it more useful to my overall development than any other game I play. It’s playing heads-up No-Limit Texas Hold ‘em. While brick and mortar casinos cannot afford to offer head’s up matches (it’s not cost effective), they are available online around the clock.
Many proponents say that online poker is great to work on the fundamentals. Play solid straight forward poker and you’ll do fine. While that is good advice, if that is all you are looking for in your online play, you are doing yourself a disservice. There is a great deal of psychology in poker and you can work on that aspect of your game as well by playing online.
Heads-up is a battle of wits, guts, and determination. If poker is psychological warfare, heads-up matches are played with nuclear warheads. If you’re waiting for cards, you will get eaten alive. You will be forced to see a lot of flops and if you see a ton of flops, you will see how hard it is to hit a flop. That will force you to develop a good post-flop strategy. Post-flop play is probably the weakest area of most players, simply because they don’t get sufficient practice. In a full ring game, it’s too easy to fall into the trap of playing flops you hit and giving up on flops you don’t. I believe most players too easily give their opponents credit for hitting the flop when they don’t.
When you play heads-up, though, you will start to get a better feel for how hard it is to hit a favorable flop. Good hands are hard to come by, which means you have to develop and rely on other aspects of your game. You’ll get extensively more experience playing post-flop than you ever could in a full ring game. This experience alone makes heads-up play worthwhile.
Yet, the psychological development you will enjoy is perhaps the best reason to play heads-up. While position is important, knowing your opponent is critical. Heads-up play affords you the opportunity to study one opponent and learn him inside out. Even though you can’t see him, you’ll see every move he makes and every move he makes will be made directly against you. That’s right. Everything your opponent does will be done in the context of your own game. It’s the ultimate psychological battle. You are engaged the entire time. I’m a big believer in observing and staying involved when you are not in a hand.
However, there’s no substitute for facing and making decisions – especially against an opponent who is trying to outplay you.
While you must be aggressive in finding and attacking your opponent’s vulnerabilities, you have to constantly look inward as well to shore up any cracks in your own game.
Of course, poker is not all psychology. There is the science aspect of the game and I believe heads-up matches will help you in that area as well. By being engaged in every hand, you will consistently be calculating pot odds and making bets and raises accordingly. The comfort and anonymity of a computer will allow you to take your time in making the calculations.
Finally, let me make one more pitch for heads-up play. The advent of online play greatly accelerated the learning curve of poker players. Players could get in a game any time of day or night and play in the comfort of their own home even if they only had a short period of time. Additionally, the number of hands dealt per hour is so much greater online. Well, in heads-up play, you will play exponentially more hands and face far more decisions in an average hour than you would in a full ring game. That acceleration of your learning curve will pay dividends in every other game you enter.
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Discover More Information About Poker Hand While Still in the Game
Talking About A Hand While It’s Still In Progress
This is an extremely hot topic with more than a few people. The opinions covered all of the bases, ranging from friendly chatter to unethical angle shots, and outright illegal moves that are made to intimidate other players. It started with this question,
In an effort to bring some basic rules to this argument, I would like to propose some ideas for dealing with this problem.
1. When somebody does something that is clearly out of order at the table (discussing possible hands, exposing cards, etc.) Politely ask them to stop. If they give you any lip, the dealer should step in and, tell them they are wrong, and then tell them not to do it again.
2. In #1 above if the dealer cautions the person without prompting by others, I will often throw them a $1 chip.
3. In #1 above, if the dealer doesn’t step in to your defense, seek out a floor-person. Tell them that you shouldn’t have to police the game, but when you go to the effort to do so, the least the dealer can do is come in on your side when you get flak about it.
Note that this may get you a reputation at the table for being a snob or worse. Ignore it. First, you’re doing the right thing for the game, and many players will thank you, even if only silently.
Opinion 4
I totally agree with Lee. I recently played a hand where I held KK and the flop came KQT. The turn brings the Jack. One of the two remaining players states “Well, I’m not going to bet because we obviously all have the straight.” Then another rocket scientist pipes up and says, “Don’t be so sure of that, I would bet anyhow.
Opinion 5
I disagree insofar as it applies to players who are in the hand. If I’m still in the hand I expect I should be able to say anything I want (short of threats of violence and mayhem or patently offensive comments). I would do this in an attempt to influence others to call, fold, or react in such a way that I can guess what they have. Only once that one ceases to have a financial interest in the outcome of the hand, do I believe it becomes inappropriate to indulge in table talk that may affect that hands outcome.
Opinion 6
If I was hoping to fill a boat, and had you pegged for a flush, and someone else for a straight, I would try to do anything I could to discourage a player behind me from raising, and making my draw more expensive than it had to be. It wouldn’t matter to me in the slightest if what I said about your hand was true or not, if it achieved my purpose of intimidating the other player into calling instead of raising. How different, really is this from advertising my strength by making a face or exercising some fake tell? Poker is a game of trickery and deception perhaps as much as it is a game of mathematics and probability. If I am not in the hand I would agree that it’s exceedingly bad form to interfere in any way with the hands outcome.
What is the definitive rule on table talk? It seems the definitive rule and the ethical rule seem to be different. I believe that it is possible to draft a set of rules that would eliminate these ethical considerations that always seem to be causing difficulty. It seems that many inexperienced players are used to playing stud where it is common to call out potential hands as the streets’ progress. In Hold’em this is not only frowned on, but also absolutely incorrect.
In closing I would like to mention one of my gripes. It is when I am playing in a stud game and the dealer insists on speculating and announcing a possible hand. I have been in games where the dealer not only announced what he thought the hand looked like, but also gave a running commentary, such as “A possible flush or straight in the works.” Give me a break, is this not breaking the one head to a hand rule? In stud, this favors the player couldn’t care less about what is on the board in front of the other player’s.
If a player is having a problem seeing the other end of the board, I have no problem with the dealer or anyone else reading the cards to them. My problem comes with helping those not skilled or interested enough to read the cards held by other players at the table, being spoon fed this information by the dealer. I realize that dealers are trained to do this as a help to newer players and a courtesy to others, my only thought is that they not carry it too far. You may think this is wrong on my part.
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Important Tips to Undersanding About Big Pots on the River In Poker
Big Pots On the River
Pots often grow quite large by the river, particularly when there has been a raise before the flop. This can cause a lot of players to marry the pot (stay in the pot because of its size even though they really shouldn’t be involved). Now if the flop brings a four flush or straight draw to your opponents, you can be certain they’ll be there to the river.
If the straight or flush cards fail to come, a bet will most likely drop all of the opponents who were trailing along, hoping to make their straight or flush. Often there are only two or three opponents contesting a very large pot on the river.
You might be in there with second pair, or perhaps top pair with a marginal kicker, and your opponent comes out betting. You’re holding a hand you’d throw away if the pot were small, but with all that money in it, what should you do? Suppose you’re playing in a $3-$6 hold’em game and the pot is $90 by the time you reach the river. If your opponent bets, the pot now contains $96. It is offering you 16-to-1 on your money. If you call and are beaten it will only cost you that additional $6. If you throw your hand away and your opponent was bluffing, you made a $96 mistake.
If you believe this to be a situation in which your opponent would bluff more than one time in 16, go ahead and call. Only if you are sure your opponent would almost never bluff, can you comfortably throw your hand away.
Generally you’re always better off committing the small error of calling with a losing hand, than the catastrophic error of folding a winner. In the situation cited above, even if your opponent would only bluff one time in ten, you are far better off calling than folding.
If you were to call ten times, you’d lose $6 on nine occasions, for a loss of $54. On the tenth occasion, you’d win a $96 pot, for a net profit of $42. If you divide that $42 profit by each of the ten times you called, your decision to call is worth $4.20 each time you make it.
If you are second to act, and think there’s some chance you have the best hand, even if you don’t consider yourself the favorite, you might want to raise if your opponent comes out betting. By doing this, you may get the third opponent to lay down his hand. If your first opponent came out betting a fairly weak hand in hopes that you might fold, he, in turn, may now fold if he suspects you’re holding a powerhouse. A play like this also adds some deception to your game. But like all deceptive plays, you have to use it sparingly.
Overcalling On the River
Occasionally you’ll be last to act against two or more opponents on the river. If one bets and the other calls, what should you do? With a bet and call in front of you, you’ll have to credit at least one of your opponents with a legitimate hand.
While the first player might have been bluffing, the second player could not call unless he had a legitimate hand. While it is possible, although somewhat remote, that he could bluff-raise, there is just no reason to call unless you have a hand that figures to win the pot.
Consequently, you’ll need a hand strong enough to beat a legitimate calling hand in order to overcall. If you had a hand you would have raised with had there been no caller, then you should definitely overcall. But if you have a hand which beats a bluff, but not much else, you’ll save money in the long run by not overcalling in these situations.
Many players make a big mistake by overcalling when they know they’re beaten. Consistently making crying overcalls can be costly. Unless you have a hand which is better than a calling hand, save your money for other opportunities.
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Discover More Info About Summarising Turn Play in the Game of Poker
When you’ve been raised on the turn
In a fixed-limit game, most players with very strong hands will wait until the betting doubles on the turn before raising their opponents. They are trying to exploit them by extracting the most money they can, and you’ll probably do the same thing.
If you are betting the turn because you believe your opponent is weak and will fold to your bet, you don’t have much of a decision at all. The best course of action is to realize you’ve misread your opponent. Just fold your hand and wait for a better opportunity. Calling won’t help if he’s got a decent hand and you have nothing at all. You could reraise him, but the vast majority of players in a fixed-limit game are not going to raise and then fold to a reraise.
But so much of hold’em is often a contest between top pair with a good kicker and other hands. Top pair often wins when those other hands are top pair with a weaker kicker, a lesser pair, or a drawing hand that fails to connect. But top pair usually loses to two pair or better.
That’s the line in the sand. If you examined the play of all the hold’em players in all the games in all the world, most of them will raise with two pair or better and they usually have the best hand when doing so.
If you know absolutely nothing about your opponent and you’ve been raised on the turn, or checkraised, and you have to guess about what he has, you can usually figure him for two pair or better and you can use that as a decision point.
If you have a draw to a straight or a flush and the size of the pot offsets the odds against completing your hand, you should call and see the river. If you have one pair and you figure him for two pair or better, you are usually drawing to catch one of five cards that will allow you to make three of a kind of pair your kicker. The size of the pot doesn’t usually support this kind of draw and in these kinds of situations you’re better off releasing your hand, even if it is top pair with a good kicker.
Summarising Turn Play
Raise when you’ve got the top two pair on the turn and an opponent bets.
If you’ve got an open ended straight draw or flush draw, and you’re up against two or more opponents, call any bet on the turn. However, if the board is paired, and there’s a bet and raise in front of you, be wary. You could be up against a full house.
Bet, or check (planning to raise), when you’re sure you have the best hand. Make it expensive for opponents to draw out on you.
If you hold a drawing hand, usually try to make your hand as cheaply as possible.
If you have a hand you would call with, betting — rather than calling — is a superior strategy if you think there’s any chance your bet will cause your opponent to fold.
Be alert to picking up a draw on the turn.
“Should I checkraise or should I bet?” comes up frequently. Unless you think your opponent will bet and call your raise, you should come out betting.
Don’t bluff bad players.
If you’re raised on the turn consider folding if all you have is one pair.
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Learn More Tips About Turn and Draw in the Game of Poker
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 — rather than checking and calling — 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. In addition, the cost of bets usually doubles on the turn, so 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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, what should you do if there’s a bet and raise in front of you? 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.
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Practical Advice to Knowing Checkraise or Lead in the Game of Poker
Should I Checkraise or Should I Lead?
This question comes up frequently. You’re in early position. You held Q-J and flopped an open ended straight draw when 10-9-5 showed up on board. When an 8 appeared on the turn, you made a straight. It’s also possible one of your opponents holding 7-6, or J-7 made a smaller straight. You’d love to see that, since they’d be drawing dead.
Your hand: Q-J
Your opponent’s hand: 7-6
The board: 10-9-5-8
Your hand shows the straight 8-9-10-J-Q
Your opponent shows the straight 6-7-8-9-10
If you try for a checkraise and your opponents all check behind you, you’ve cost yourself some money. Should you bet, hoping to get some more money into the pot? Or are you better off checkraising and trying for a bigger payday, bearing in mind you might not get any money into the pot, if they all check behind you?
Better try reconstructing the play of the hand. Was there a lot of preflop action, suggesting that your opponents held big hands or big pairs? Did they raise on the flop, suggesting they might have been trying to force any straight draws to fold? Or did they just check and call, suggesting that they too, were on the come, and have now made their hand?
But an opponent holding a single big pair might also check, since the turn showed straight possibilities. He could also bet, to see where he’s at, and fold if raised. If you think this is the case, you’re better off leading with a bet, since he may call, but would throw his hand away if he bet and you raised him.
If your opponent was also on the come, you might want to check, hoping he will try to steal it with a bluff. Well it is possible he made his straight, and though smaller than yours, he’ll still bet from late position. If that’s the case, you can raise with the assurance he will not lay his hand down — even if he suspects you have the nut straight.
This is a case where recalling the play of the hand is more important than knowing the tendencies of your opponents. If you can deduce what kind of hand — or hands — your opponents are likely to hold, you can decide whether to come out betting or try for a checkraise. Remember, unless you think your opponent will bet and call your raise, betting is the preferred course of action.
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