Four Tips For Playing The Turn

February 2nd, 2011 by Hayley Mather

Four Tips For Playing The Turn

The turn is often the betting round in a no-limit hand where the first big bets come out. Flop bets are usually small enough that you can call with a speculative holding and a wait-and-see strategy. On the turn, unless people are making undersized bets, playing to wait-and-see is too expensive.

Not only are turn bet sizes fairly big, they actually play even bigger due to a principle called leverage. Calling a turn bet doesn’t get you to showdown. It just gets you to the river where you may have to pay an even larger bet to see the showdown. For instance, if someone bets $150 on the turn out of a $500 stack, he’s implicitly saying to you, “It’s one-fifty now, and on the river it might be another three-fifty.” This possibility makes turn bets play bigger than their nominal size.

In practice, however, many players misplay the turn and river and misunderstand how leverage works. Here are four tips for the turn to help you take advantage of the mistakes people make.

In the first paragraph I said that playing wait-and-see on the turn is too expensive. Now I’m saying you should play wait-and-see. What gives?

Wait-and-see on the turn is too expensive because of leverage. You can’t be calling turn bets willy nilly when your opponents will often hit you with very large and very uncomfortable river bets. The trick is that most players don’t play the river well at all. They play the street far too passively, bluffing rarely and betting only very strong hands. This tendency renders their turn leverage nearly moot, because you no longer have much to fear from a river bet. Most of the time your opponents will check the river. And when they bet, at least when they bet big, you’re looking at a monster and you can fold. If you want to play no-limit hold’em online check out the full tilt referral code.

You can take advantage of this passivity by calling turn bets with hands like pairs you want to show down and even flush or straight draws. You should call with pairs when you think there’s a good chance your opponent is betting a draw or a weaker pair. If your opponent checks the river, you check it back. You can call with draws under the same conditions, but the idea would be to put in a large river bluff if you miss your draw and your opponent checks.

If your opponent were more aggressive on the river, these marginal calls wouldn’t pay. Too often you’d simply be forced to fold to a river all-in bet. But passive opponents permit you to play more flexibly and allow you to swipe pots that you, theoretically, shouldn’t be winning.

This is the corollary to Tip 1. Don’t be the player who postures on the turn, but turns into a pussycat on the river.

Perhaps you’ve heard a player grouse about how so-and-so just won’t fold. “You should have folded to the turn bet!” he’ll complain after his draw misses and someone else drags a large pot with bottom pair.

The player who called with bottom pair is likely a weak player who just likes to call turn bets to see if he’ll improve on the river. But when turn bluffers are too timid to drop the hammer on the river, the weak player is unwittingly following Tip 1 by calling the turn.

Aggressive players bet their draws on the turn and, if called, sometimes also bet the river when they miss. They don’t bet every draw on the turn. And they don’t bet the river every time when they miss. But they bet each street often enough to take advantage of leverage and punish players who make lazy turn calls with a wait-and-see attitude.

If you aren’t prepared to fire again sometimes on the river, don’t bluff the turn.

Nits play tightly and don’t pay off for stacks without very strong hands. Nits also understand the principle of leverage. They look at a turn bet, look at the remaining money, and calculate how much they could lose if it all went wrong.

By and large, nits fold top pair on the turn to good-sized bets with stacks behind. If you have a big hand like a set, against a loose or normal player, you’d usually want to bet all streets to play for maximum value. But against a nit, consider checking the turn. Show a bit of false weakness. They’ll still be scared by your river bet, but they might have just enough doubt to look you up.

Don’t overuse this play. Big hands demand big pots, and the best way to build a big pot is to bet the turn. But on some boards against very snug players, betting the turn is sure to blow your opponent off nearly any weaker hand. In these cases, consider checking.

Most live small stakes no-limit hold’em players are too passive on the river. They’re also too passive on the turn. Most players need to learn to bet the turn.

If someone called your flop continuation bet and the turn bricks, bet.

If you semibluffed a flush draw on the flop and the turn bricks, bet.

If you flopped top pair and an opponent called, then on the turn bet again.

If your opponent bet the flop and you called, and your opponent checks the turn, bet.

Of course it’s not all as simple as bet, bet, bet all the time. But if you’re like most no-limit players, you don’t bet often enough. Try betting in these situations (and others) and see what happens. Chances are, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

);”>Card Player.]

Poker Vegas Club