Poker School - Lesson 5 | Play on Turn And River

Turn Play

The turn in texas holdem is a place where your decisions will have a major factor on your results. Bets are now double in size and the mistakes you might do here cost twice as much as on the earlier streets. Playing the river isn't too simple either, because you have to learn to value bet effectively and avoid folding too much (it's a common error in beginners game to fold too much on the river when they first learn to play tight). Making great laydowns is a part of nolimit holdem that isn't really useful trait in limit play.

Drawing Hand on the Turn

When you have a drawing hand on the turn it's easier to calculate the odds when an opponent bets, because you only have to think about pot odds and possible implied odds, and forget the effective odds entirely because you're only calling bets here, and not on the future streets if you miss your draw. Also, you only need to calculate your chances of making the hand on the next card. You should note though, that as the drawing hands lose lots of their value from flop to turn, you aren't making anywhere near the amount of raising with drawing hands as on the flop. On the flop you might raise an open-ended straight draw for value, but you'd need something like a straightflush draw and several opponents to raise a draw for value on the turn. As the pot is probably quite large, you are going to get proper odds for your draws most of the time so that's not something we should focus here, but what about playing when you have a hand made.

Top Pair Or Less on the Turn

Most of the time you should bet when you have a hand on the turn to avoid giving free card to someone drawing, and also raise with top pair top kicker and better hands if someone else has bet before you. If you bet and get raised it's time to evaluate your hand, and a good rule of thumb is that raise on the turn means that the raiser has top pair top kicker or better. As the players in lower limits are mostly very straightforward you should strongly consider folding top pair hands when someone raises on the turn, unless the raiser is very aggressive (and somewhat loose).