Taking Your Turn

Watching a Hand Fill Out

Of all the cards you receive in Hold’em, the turn is the least momentous. Only the clinically insane would have stayed through the flop for a double draw — meaning, drawing two cards to a straight or a flush — so it’s unlikely that this is the point that your hand will suddenly be broken in that fashion.

However, bets double here and on the river, so if you make a mistake or a loose call here — as opposed to on the flop — it will cost you twice as much. And in the long run, the incorrect call on the turn is what will endanger your bankroll.

In broad terms, on the turn your hand will either be improving or getting worse. This isn’t quite as stupid as it sounds, because when you stop and think about it, if your hand is staying the same, it’s potentially degrading relative to the field (if there are a lot of players in the hand, it definitely is degrading).

Odds are that your hand won’t be improving on the turn because you have to either pair a card or improve a straight or flush. And in Hold’em, for any given hand, the odds are always against that improvement happening. Therefore, when you do improve, you’re very likely gaining with respect to the rest of the table, and (assuming that card isn’t helping your opponent even more) you may well be passing them.

That’s great because these are exactly the kinds of problems you want to have in Poker. This particular one being the what-do-I-do-when-I’m-winning problem. Your big decision is whether you should check-raise or bet.

To check-raise or bet: That is the question

Here’s a very good rule of thumb for check-raising on the turn: If you think your opponent behind you will initially bet and call your check-raise, you should check. If not, you should bet — and do it right now!

Looking at a hand that’s good enough to check-raise, say Q-Q on a rainbow 2-4-9-Q board (the best possible current hand), if you check and your opponent checks, you’ve lost a bet.

If you check, your opponent bets, and you raise, your opponent may well pass — check-raises tend to do that to people. And it’s true that you gained two units (remembering that the bet on the turn and the river is double what it is pre-flop and on the flop), but you’ve also given your opponent a chance to simply check. Your Q-Q may well have come with a pre-flop raise and a post-flop bet. For sure, people want to see another free card — and if you check, that’s exactly what they’ll get.

If you bet, people could call — in fact there is a whole classification of people who will call — but won’t make a bet if you check to them (for example, someone holding a tail-wagging K-9).

Made flushes: The notable exception

A flush is a big powerful hand that, if you’re lucky, has been made by the turn. (Dang. You are so lucky. It seems like you always do that.)

Treat these hands as described in the “To check-raise or bet: That is the question” section, but with one big exception: If you have a tiny flush that is potentially threatened by a larger four-flush held by someone to act behind you, you need to bet it now.

Consider, for example, that you’re holding J♣ 10♣ in eighth position, but the other two people still in the game are behind you in the ninth and tenth seats. You’re the first to act and the board shows 4♣ 7♣ Q♦ 2♣.

This is a great setup because you hold a club flush right now, and it’s possible that either person behind you (one of whom opened the betting on the flop) hit a pair of queens. Unless the player drawing with a pair of queens has another pair to go with it (or holds the queen of clubs), he’ll be drawing dead here. And even if he does have two pair, he still has to pair one of the board cards to make a full house on the river.

The lurking danger is a person holding something higher than your jack still being in the hand. The queen, king, and ace, to the best of your knowledge, are all still in play — and those are precisely the kinds of cards people hold and play (especially if someone paired a Q♣ in his hand with the one on the flop).

Betting your hand right now will force anyone on the draw to decide if the pot odds are such that a call is feasible. Your betting leaves lots of room for other players to make mistakes:

They may make a mistake calculating pot odds and fold when they should call (or do the equivalent of making a mistake by not knowing what pot odds are and simply making the wrong choice to begin with).
They may make a mistake calculating pot odds and call when they should fold. (Again, they may not know and may just make the wrong choice.)
They may try to bluff you by reraising right now with a hand that’s drawing dead.

If you do get raised when you bet a made flush, you should call and check-call on the river. It’s possible someone is trying to bluff you; if so, you’ll beat that person on the river. It’s also possible someone is holding a larger flush than yours (for example, K♣ Q♣), in which case you’re just unlucky — but you need to minimize your losses by not firing the first bullet on the river.

And, of course, the smaller your flush is (like holding a suited 2-3 — shame on you!), the more dangerous the four-flush on the river is.

Watching for “hidden” improvements

On the turn, you need to keep your eyes open for opportunities that are making your hand better in ways that you didn’t expect.

For example, if you were dealt 10♠ 10♣, a Q♣ 8♣ 3♥ flop isn’t very exciting. As long as no one seems overly perky to see that queen hit, and there seem to be a lot of stragglers, you’ve got good reason to be here for the turn card.

But when the J♣ turn hits, things are both better and worse. You now have a fairly good flush draw. Because the jack and the queen are both exposed, the only clubs over your 10 are the king and the ace. You also have a gut shot straight draw of any 9 (with the 9♣ being your beyond-magical straight-flush draw — worth mentioning for novelty only, but not likely enough to change your mind in the overall scheme of things).

This means there are

Nine clubs left in the deck that will make your flush. This wins as long as there isn’t one of the three bigger clubs sitting at the table.
Three more 9s left (we already counted the 9♣ above). This will be good enough to win as long as you’re not fighting a flush already on the table, or a stray K-9 that is barking up a straight (except for the super-great 9♣ that’s an automatic winner).
Two 10s left in the deck. This is probably good enough as long as someone isn’t playing a 9-10 for a straight (fairly unlikely because that means all 10s from the deck would have to be in play, and that last 10 would have to be paired with a 9, and someone would have had to play it). Not impossible, just very unlikely.

Assuming your pair of 10s isn’t any good right now (and it almost certainly is not if there are a lot of players — there’s both a queen and a jack on the board), that means you have 14 outs in the 46 remaining cards (not all guaranteed winners — depending on the composition of other players’ hands) on the draw.

This hand isn’t good enough to bet straight-out, especially against a bunch of players — but if you’re getting better than 3¼-to-1 pot odds on your call, you can stay in to see the river. Keep in mind that the odds are against you in this situation — this means you probably will lose the hand, but mathematically you’ll win money in the long run if you call here.

If you see betting and raising in this situation before the action even gets to you, you should fold. It almost certainly means you’re either drawing dead or you’re under-drawing (meaning that the same card that helps you also helps someone else who will end up better — say someone holding a higher club).

Keeping Track of the Action

The most important job you have on the turn is to remember the betting action you see on this round and try the best you can to equate it with the actions you saw on the hole cards and the flop. You also need to etch all the betting plays you see here into your mind. The number-one most common place for players to set a trap is on the turn — because they just miss a hand on the flop and then make it on fourth street.

If you saw someone attacking a pot earlier, and then backing off on the turn, it’s likely one of two things has happened: They’ve either hit a hand, or they’ve missed and they’re trying to save some cash.

Determining a hit

Many people will anticipate a straight or a flush draw by betting — beginning players will oftentimes raise. When they hit a hand, they’ll often back off, hoping to check-raise you.

Trapping opponents who flush

Consider a flop of 2♠ 5♠ 10♦ with a turn of Q♠. Big hands in early positions, like A♠ K♠, will have raised pre-flop and may have come out initiating betting on the flop (or maybe check-raising). These players are sitting on a spade four-flush with two dominant over-cards. That’s enough to make the eyes of many players spin back in their heads and bet bet bet. When the other spade hits on the turn, they suddenly see the riches of the world on their doorstep and back off with the idea of check-raising you.

People in later positions like to play suited connectors, say 9♠ 10♠, and they too might get excited. Especially if they’re catching top pair and a flush draw (also an example of a hidden improvement).

From a betting perspective, the event you’re looking for is a ton of action, and then suddenly none. Again, it depends a lot on the players involved (see Book 3, Chapter 6 for more on reading other players), but all other things being equal, we’d say this person is setting a trap by checking in front of you.

To test the theory, your best bet is to check through on the turn and see what happens on the river. If your opponent comes out betting on the river first again, she probably has a hand and was trying to trap you. If she checks again, it means that she had something good (trip 5s, trip 10s, two pair?), but backed off when the spades hit the board because she thought she was bested.

Of course, if you have the best hand (like the nut flush on the turn), then absolutely you should fire a bet off — especially if you’re in the end of the betting order.

Putting you in a straightjacket

The other hand that gets made in the same fashion is a straight. Again, consider your opponents and their position around the table.

If someone very commonly plays connectors, or suited connectors, watch out for the player who limps in pre-flop, then gets excited by a set of cards like 5♥ 6♣ 10♠, but suddenly backs off on a 9♥ turn.

If you think about it, that kind of behavior doesn’t make sense, because a 9 isn’t a threatening card here. If someone had a hand they liked with a 4-5-10 board, how is a 9 going to make it any worse?

Easy. Either that person was bluffing, and has now backed off because he’s afraid you’re going to call again or, more likely with many opponents, because his 7-8 just went straight. Now, instead of bullying you with raises and hoping you might fold on semi-bluffs, he can back off because he has a made hand.

Comprehending the miss

Don’t get so wrapped up in your inner psychic powers of analysis that the turban falls over your eyes and blinds you to the obvious signs that someone is afraid he’s just been bested, or he’s missing on a draw he was hoping for before.

Smelling someone’s fear

For example, consider a flop of Q♠ 2♥ 4♥, and someone’s betting strong. The A♠ hits on the turn and your adversary seems to back off. It’s not because she just made a wheel, it’s probably because she had paired the queens and is now afraid that the ace has counterfeited her in someone else’s hand.

Although it’s a fairly rare occurrence, another place you’ll see people back off is when their trips have just been bested by a better set.

Here’s an example that’s easy to see: Nearly everyone who holds a suited K-Q pre-flop will bet it (some will bet it heavily). If a raising battle ensues, it’s nearly always someone who is holding an ace with a big kicker (say a suited A-Q). Lesser pairs on the table will eventually back off — they just assume that there is a bigger pair over them.

A flop of A-K-K will bring heavy action from the player holding three kings, and the player with the aces will back off a tad (but almost certainly still stay in the hand, assuming that the other player is maybe holding a king), and only vaguely considering that his opponent really does hold the nightmarish trip Kings.

A turn of an ace will bring the player with the K-Q to a screeching stop. It’s true, he now holds kings full of aces; but any opponent holding even a singelton ace now has aces full of kings. So when the man with the cowboys quits betting, he isn’t trapping, he’s trying to figure out how he got so unlucky.

Gazing at the unfortunate

Big bets pre-flop and on the flop but then backed off on the turn could also mean your opponent has been anticipating a straight or flush and has missed — or he was trying to bluff that he had hit early, and he’s afraid that the bluff isn’t working because it was you who had actually hit the hand when you called.

These types of boards will have slightly different looks. What you’re looking for are single-suited flops, say 2♥ 4♥ J♥ followed by an 8♣.

The siblings to the flush-not-making-it board are the ones where the flops that had hinted and teased at a straight are now walking away from making those wanting hands successful. Q♥ J♦ 3♣ followed by a lame 4♣, would be one example.

In the cases of straights and flushes that are not coming to fruition, if you have a hand (even a medium-strength one), you need to fire bullets. When someone folds, you automatically win — everyone else should always pay to see cards they’re drawing for.