• Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Poker
• Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Green
• Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Signal

The turn is basically the same as the flop with one exception. Instead of 3 cards dealt out, only 1 is dealt face up. All players may use this card along with the 3 on the flop and the 2 in your hand as well. The action is once again determined by who is closest to the left of the blinds or the person in the blinds. Nov 05, 2020 Turn & River Odds & Probabilities. After the flop, the decisions in Texas Holdem get a bit tougher. Understanding pot odds will help determine your best action from here. Check out our Texas Hold’em Pot Odds article to learn more about pot odds, what pot odds are, calculating your pot odds, implied odds, etc. You can also view our Texas Hold. The turn in Texas Hold'em is easily one of the most forgotten about streets in the game. It all seems a lot easier to tag it as some useless betting round in between the flop and river, but that's not going to win you any money now is it?

Far too many players ignore flop texture when playing Texas hold’em. Why so many players ignore texture continues to amaze me. After all, a flop’s texture is free information when you’re trying to connect the dots by evaluating the board’s composition in conjunction with the range of cards your opponent could be holding. While it’s easy to abstractly assign a range of hands to your opponent, the texture of the flop goes a long way toward delineating the range of hands he is likely holding, along with those potential hands that might have been dashed by a texture that won’t help his hole cards at all.

Poker players who bet and call without regard texture are making a costly mistake, and these are the very players you want to play against. When you take board texture into account and are able to assign a more precise hand range to an opponent because his broader range has been modified by the board’s texture, your reads on your opponents will be all the more accurate for it.

Dry and Wet Boards

The first thing that should come to mind when thinking about flop texture is whether you’re looking at a dry or a wet board. While further refinements can be made when examining boards, step one is determining whether the board is dry or wet. Dry boards are those that offer few drawing possibilities while wet boards are rife with drawing possibilities. Boards in between are neutral.

Dry boards generally have one big and two small cards, or three small cards that do not support a flush draw, and while a ragged board might support a straight draw, it’s unlikely that your opponents would be holding cards that connect with such a flop.

Examples of dry boards would include:

Look at those flops. There just aren’t many hands that coordinate with them. While someone holding would love the first flop, and an opponent with in his hand would have flopped a set with the latter board, you really can’t assume your opponent has either of those hands. You have to begin assessing your opponent’s hand by assigning a range of hands to him, and when you do, the ranges supported by these two flops are quite narrow.

Playing Into a Dry Board

When examining a ragged, low flop, it’s important to account for whether anyone raised before the flop. If there was a raise before the flop and callers – especially cold callers as opposed to players who called and then called again when the pot was raised behind them – there’s a far less likelihood that a low, ragged board was the answer to anyone’s prayers.

If the raiser was in early position, and most or all of your opponents cold-called the raise, you can discount the possibility of a straight anytime you see a dry, low, ragged board, and anyone who comes out betting is either representing an overpair or bluffing.

A dry board can also contain a pair, and a flop like is dry in the sense that it does not support any draws. That doesn’t guarantee a win for you. After all, someone might have taken a flyer with a hand like and is now sitting pretty with a hand no one suspects him of holding. Even if someone hung around with , he’s probably now in the lead with two pair, even with a somewhat dicey kicker.

Wet Boards

Wet boards are the opposite of dry boards; they’re heavy with draws and well coordinated. Here are a couple of examples of wet boards:

These two flops have two big cards that would pair-up with the kinds of big cards most hold’em players are fond of, plus they support flush draws, along with a couple of straight draws. In fact, if these flops hits someone perfectly, that person already made his straight.

The more coordinated a wet board is in terms of supporting straight and flush draws and the greater the number of players in the pot, the more a wet board makes it difficult to envision winning with a hand like top pair, top kicker.

Boards like this have cards that reside in what’s referred to as the playing zone. The playing zone is just what you think it is: the area of the deck where players find cards they want to play, and it’s usually cards ranging from jack through ace, or ten through ace. When most players are dealt two cards in the playing zone, they’re going to look for a reason to play them, and only a big raise, or a raise and a reraise will dissuade them.

Board Texture and Continuation Bets

Reading the board’s texture is very important when considering whether you should make a continuation bet. It’s not difficult at all to do this. If the flop hit you hard, you’re going to bet; that’s a given. But the flop figures to miss you more often than not. If, for example, you raised before the flop with A-K, you’re only going to like the flop one-third of the time. But by evaluating the board’s texture and the range of your opponent’s likely cards, you’ll have a good handle on whether you should bet when you miss the flop.

Dry boards garner more folds then wet boards because there fewer combinations of hands to connect with them, and when you’re the pre-flop raiser and know that the flop is very unlikely to have helped your adversary, you can make a continuation bet knowing you have a good chance of forcing your opponent to fold. Even if he thinks you might not have connected with the flop, there’s always a chance that you’re sitting there with a big pocket pair. You, on the other hand, know he had nothing before the flop and probably nothing on it.

So go ahead and c-bet into that dry board and watch your opponent fold most of the time. In fact, if your opponent plays hit-to-win, fit-or-fold poker, you’ll take down the pot almost every time. Just remember not to vary your bet size too much when c-betting as compared to when you have a real hand, so your opponent can’t gauge the strength of your hand by the size of your bet.

Using Texture to Raise Aggressive Opponents

Sometimes you can raise an aggressive opponent on the flop based on your own drawing possibilities and the board’s texture. Suppose there was a raise before the flop and you call from late position with a hand like . We’ll assume both blinds folded and the flop is . The flop’s texture does not support a flush draw, so you need not worry about that. And while you don’t have a hand yet, you do have a straight draw along with two overcards that might propel you into the winner’s circle if you pair either of them on the turn or the river. You’ve got lots of ways to win.

Your opponent probably raised in front of you with a pocket pair or two big connecting cards. Based on probability alone, chances are your opponent has big cards rather than a pair and if he does, he whiffed on the flop. If he has A-K, A-Q, A-J, K-Q or a medium pair like 7-7 or 8-8 and comes out betting, he might even fold to your raise, and you won’t have to see the turn or river to win the hand. The flop’s texture, coupled with the equity present in that combination of a big draws plus overcards, along with the likelihood that your opponent didn’t really like the flop, gives you a good chance of taking it down with a raise.

On the other hand, suppose you raised with only to see a flop of . Even if the blinds check to the raiser, you’re staring straight up at two overcards right in the playing zone. You have no draw to speak of, and are probably going to check, hoping that anyone who acts after you will also check so you can see a free card in hopes of turning a set.

Now we’ll assume you open-raised with from late position only to see a flop of . A low-card flop tends to hit callers rather than raisers, so a continuation bet is probably the way to go here, because the flop probably missed your opponents just as it missed you. But if you make a bet and are called, figure your opponent for a pocket pair or a draw of some sort, since these are the very kinds of hands that would call in this situation. When that happens you’ll have to be wary of any turn card that appears to support hands of that nature.

If the turn card is a big one – an ace or a king – it will appear scary to anyone on a draw or holding a small pair, so it presents you with a good opportunity to take a stab at the pot. But if the turn is a low card, you’re better off checking and probably souping your hand if your opponent bets.

Awareness of the flop’s texture – as well as the texture of the board on the turn and the river too – is a powerful tool for assessing the possible strength of your opponent’s hand. Texture, along with betting patterns, the number of players contesting the pot and their playing styles, goes a long way to raising your game far above that of a simple hit-to-win strategy, and gives you a number of ways to identify opportunities to bluff, bet on the come, or check and fold, and each of them can win or save money for you in the long run.

By Lou Krieger

The author of many best-selling poker books, including “Hold’em Excellence” and “Poker for Dummies”. A true ambassador of the game and one of poker’s greatest ever teachers.

In the post Flop texture I discussed one view of flop texture, which is to divide flops into dry boards or wet boards, dependent on the composition of the three cards. In this post, I shall discuss another approach, which concentrates on suitedness and connectedness. In this post, I will be referring to the groups in Hand Rankings and Strengths.

It is almost a truism to say that previously strong pre-flop pocket cards can turn into a mediocre or trash combination dependent on the flop, and previously mediocre or possibly trash pocket cards can be transformed into strong or even monster hands dependent on the flop. Since we are considering playing online poker, and hands move at a fast clip, we need a way to quickly evaluate the flop, to determine whether or not to fold, or to continue to bet on the turn, the river, and eventually to participate in the showdown.

Firstly, we ask how many cards of the same suit does the board have. Is a flush draw possible? There is a better chance if all three cards are of the same suit; if you have two cards of a matching suit you have a made flush, if you have one card of a matching suit, you need only match on the turn or the river to turn the hand into a made flush. If there are two cards of the same suit, and you have one or two cards of a matching suit, then help from the turn or river is required, but it’s possible to turn your hand into a made flush.

Next, we ask how many connected cards does the board have. If the three cards are all connected there is a good chance of a straight draw, and you might even have a made straight draw with your own pocket cards. If two cards are connected and there is a one-gap or two-gap in the other card, you may need only one matching card, and assistance from the turn or the river to make a made straight draw.

Finally, we ask how many face cards does the board have, and how many pairs, preferably high pairs there are. If you are playing a disciplined game, and restricting your pocket cards to Groups 1 to 3 in early position, and Groups 4 and 5 in late position, face cards in the flop are more attractive because most players will play through to the flop holding face cards, in the hopes of making a two pair, a trip, a full house, or even four of a kind.

Rainbow flops

By way of definition, a rainbow flop is a flop where all cards are of a different suit, so no flush draws are possible. If you have two suited matching cards, then a backdoor flush draw, with help from the turn and the river have a very low probability of occurring.

Most rainbow flops are where there is one high card, or where the flop is all rags, which are cards with a denomination of 8 and under. An example of a rainbow flop with one high card is:

With this flop, the best pocket cards are K9s (a Group 6 hand, so really only playable through to the flop in late position) making a two pair, or any King with a high kicker for a top pair.

Another rainbow flop, which is all rags, is:

Here, pretty much any two pair hand would be advantageous, but a Group 4 hand 88 would make a trip, and it’s unlikely one would bet a Group 7 hand 44 or 22 through to the flop to make the lower trips.

2-suited flops

A 2-suited flop contains two cards of the same suit. For example:

A flush draw, which means you if have a Group 2 A ♢ J ♢ or Group 4 T ♢ 9 ♢, you have a good chance to make a flush draw on the turn or the river, and should bet through to the showdown. A single high-value matching card, such as A ♢, or K ♢, might lead to a back door flush draw, but would need a matching ? ♢ on both turn and river, which is a low probability outcome.

3-suited flops

A 3-suited flop is where all the cards are of the same suit. For example:

If you have two matching pocket cards, such as Group 3 Q ♢ J ♢ or A ♢ 10 ♢, you effectively have the nut flush and should play aggressively all the way to the showdown, because you are hardly likely to be beaten. However, you need to beware Group 6 K9s or K9 because a K or 9 on the turn and the river will make a full house. This is an unlikely, but possible, outcome and needs to be accounted for.

2-connected flops

This type of flop makes it possible to make a straight draw, and because players prefer to play connected pocket pairs, and a two pair is also more likely. For example:

This is a rainbow flop and an open-ended straight draw is possible, with a one in three chance of a straight. So a Group 4 KQ requires an A or 9 to make a straight on the turn or the river, and a Group 4 98s requires a Q or a 7 on the turn or river to make a straight draw.

3-connected flops

A 3-connected flop makes it possible for a player to have a made straight. For example:

Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Poker

Here, a Group 2 KQs or a Group 4 KQ are required to have a made straight, but note also, a Group 5 87s or Group 8 87. The danger of playing the lower end pocket cards is you might be outplayed by the high-end pocket cards. It’s also possible to play Group 1 QQ or Group 4 88 and rely on the turn or river cards to make a straight.

High pair flops

A dangerous flop is a high pair flop. Most players will bet through to the flop on high pocket cards. For example:

A Group 1 JJs will result in four of a kind, a Group 3 KJs will result in a full house, a Group 2 KQs or Group 4 KQ will result in a two pair. The danger with playing a high pair is other players, playing through to the flop with their high pocket cards, may outplay you despite holding strong pocket cards yourself. Dangerous territory, indeed.

Low pair flops

The danger for a playing encountering a low pair flop is from other loose aggressive or loose passive players. For example:

it is likely that a tight aggressive player will fold any hand containing a 4. But loose players might likely play a hand containing a 4 for a trip, or a 9 for a two pair. However, any top pair is a viable combination for a two pair or full house, with assistance from the turn or the river.

High cards only

Where there are high cards only, such as:

Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Green

invites participation from a player playing Group 1 to Group 3 hands. Caution must be exercised because other players playing to the flop may have similarly strong hands, so it is necessary to observe other players’ betting patterns to determine whether to continue. So a Group 3 QJs or Group 5 QJ will be a straight, a Group 1 AA or KK, Group 2 TT will be a trip. Other winning combinations will be possible with assistance from the turn or river, but that’s another story.

Texas Holdem Flop River Turn Signal

In this post, I have covered another approach to evaluating the flop, by breaking it down into suitedness and connectedness, with other considerations, such as the rainbow flop and flops with pairs, along the way.