The outcome of a shot and the size of a pot are often determined on the turn, the fourth card on the board, because that’s when bets start to be important and mistakes are made. This is the best time to win over weak players and pocket important pots!
In No-Limit Texas Hold’em, the fourth card on the board is where the first big raises are often made. The bets are often low enough for you to follow with a speculative hand, such as a small pair or a draw, but on the turn, the game becomes really interesting.
On the turn, unless bets are too low, a wait-and-see strategy becomes too expensive and too risky, you have to attack!
Not only are the turn-based turnaround sizes rather large, but they also have more impact because of a “leverage effect”. Indeed, following a turn bet will not lead you to slaughter. This only allows you to access the river where you may have to pay an even higher bet to see your opponent’s cards.
For example, in a game of cash game, if someone with a 500 € carpet bet 150 € on the turn, it simply says: “For now it’s 150 € and, at the river, it could to be 350 € more ».
In practice, many players play badly on the turn and the river and do not know how to use this leverage, but King of Poker today offers four tips to help you take advantage of the mistakes of others.
#1 Follow the turn in position with marginal hands and a wait-and-see strategy
We explained that adopting a wait-and-see strategy on the turn was too expensive, but now we say that’s what you should do! Why ?
In fact, this strategy can be expensive because you can not follow turn bets if your opponents often make big bets on the river, so be sure to analyze the previous moves, especially if you do not participate. Feel free to talk to your opponents to glean information, or even to identify tell.
Indeed, many players play badly on the river. They play it too passively, rarely bluffing and betting only with strong hands. This trend almost negates their leverage on the turn because you do not have much to worry about. Most of the time, your opponents will check and when they bet, at least when they bet big, you will face a monstrous hand and you can go to bed. Without regrets.
If they check at the river, check back. You can follow with draws under the same circumstances, but the idea would be to make a big bluff at the river if you miss your draw and your opponent checks.
If your opponent was more aggressive on the river, these marginal calls would not work. Too often, you would be forced to go to bed with a stacked raise, but passive opponents can play with more flexibility and grab pots that you should not have won.
#2 Check your draws on the turn if you are not ready to bet at the river
This is the corollary of Tip # 1! Do not be that player who plays hard on the turn before deflating on the river! You’ve probably heard a player say, “You should have gone to bed on the turn! After his draw was unsuccessful and someone else pocketed the pot with an average pair in hand.
This is probably a weak player who is content to follow turn stakes to see if he will improve on the river. But when the players who bluff on the turn are too shy to continue on the river, the weak player unknowingly follows the board n ° 1 following the turn.
Aggressive players attack their draws on the turn and, if followed, sometimes bet on the river when they miss their draws. They do not attack all their draws on the turn, and they do not always bet on the river when they miss, but they bet on every opportunity, and often enough to take advantage of the leverage and punish the players. players who follow the turn with a wait-and-see attitude.
If you are not willing to bet sometimes at the river, do not bluff on the turn!
About bluffing strategies, we invite you to read our poker bluff files, even the semi-bluff and the floating-bluff, which could help you better understand these movements.
#3 Check the turn with good hands against very tight players
Very tight players do not engage their rugs without a very strong hand.
They also understand very well the principle of leverage. They consider the raise on the turn, check the money left and calculate how much they could lose if things went wrong. They are sleeping max on the turn against big bets and big rugs.
If you had a strong hand like a trip to a wide or normal player, you would usually be interested in wagering each turn to get the maximum value. But, against a very tight player, you have to consider checking the turn.
Show apparent weakness. Your opponent will always be frightened by your bet at the river but he may be doubtful enough to challenge you.
Do not abuse this technique: Beautiful hands involve big pots, and the best way to make a big pot is to bet on the turn, but in some games, against very tight players, your opponent will give up almost all hands more weak than yours. In this case, consider checking.
A short summary?
Most Texas Hold’em players are too passive on the river and often on the turn, which is not a good attitude to adopt in the majority of cases.
Concretely, the best that we can advise you would like in a few lines:
- If someone has followed your continuation-bet on the flop and any card falls on the turn, bet.
- If you made a semi-bluff and any card falls on the turn, bet.
- If you have flopped a max pair and an opponent has followed, bet again on the turn.
- If your opponent bet on the flop, which you followed and he checked on the turn, bet as well.
Of course, it is not all the time to “bet, bet, bet” but if you are a passive player, you will be fooled. Try to bet in these situations (and others) and see what happens. It is likely that you are pleasantly surprised!
The poker raises are extremely important, we have also devoted several articles on this theme including “pre-flop raises” and an article answering the question “why is it always necessary to restart poker? “, Do not hesitate to have a look!
