Texas Holdem Flop River And

4/6/20224/6/2022

In Texas Hold’Em, the two important rounds are the river and the flop after your starting hand. The odds of getting other cards at this stage have specific terms and statistics. Premium Hands Odds In Texas Hold’em. Getting a high pocket pair or an ace to king hand is really exciting, but the odds are just 2.1%.
In community card poker game like Omaha hold 'em and Texas hold 'em, those names are flop, turn and river. The river card, or just river, is the last card dealt. In most community poker games, the dealer starts each hand by dealing every player two hole (facedown) cards.
In Texas Hold'Em, each player is dealt two private cards, and all players share five community cards. Community cards are the X factor in Texas Hold'Em. They are revealed slowly through three rounds of play called the Flop, the Turn and the River. The challenge of Texas Hold'Em is for the player to determine which cards will appear, how to use.

Texas Holdem Flop River And Spa
Texas Holdem Flop River Turn

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.

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’em Pot Odds Chart here. The Flop, the Turn and the River. The flop The three communal cards (referred to as the flop) are now dealt face up in the middle of the table. There follows a second round of betting, at the same levels as before ($5, with possible raises to $10, $15 and $20).

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.

Related Lessons

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.

Related Lessons

1. Playing the Flop

As mentioned before, the flop is a defining point in a poker hand. On the flop you get to see 71 percent of your hand for the cost of one round of betting. Because of this, you should fold your hand if one of three things isn’t true.

You hold a big pair before the flop
The Flop improves your hand
The Flop offers a draw to a rewarding straight or flush.

Most of the Time you wont like the flop, but in some rare instances, your worries wont be if you’ll lose, but rather how to get the most money out of opponents. Here is a list of a wide range of Flop situations.

Dangerous Flops

Bad Kicker: You may flop the top pair, but your hand is only as strong as your kicker. Be extra cautious with this type of hand.

Suited flop: Its especially dangerous when all the cards are suited or sequenced, like 9-8-7. Even if you have a set you may be up against someone who has already made a straight or flush. The only way for you to win would be for the board to pair. Use discretion with top pair, two pair, or even a set in this instance.

Pretty Good Flops

Two Pair: If you flop two pair you are usually in pretty good shape, especially if it is top two pair. Unless it appears obvious that you’ve been beaten you should stay with this hand.

Top Pair: A ton of Holdem pots are won with the top pair on board. If it appears to be a safe board, your main concern is discerning whether your kicker is bigger than your opponents.

Over pair: If the board is 9 6 3, and you’re holding J J, you have what is called an over pair. This simply means that you have a pocket pair greater than the highest card on the flop. This is usually a hand to consider raising with to push out someone with possibly 8-7 or 5-4. Your main worry in this situation is that someone has a higher pocket pair or a set.

Flops You’ll Like

Set with a safe board: Lets say you hold 9 9 and the flop is 9 K 3. You’ve flopped a set or a three of a kind. In this situation there’s not much to worry about because the board is safe. There’s not much of a straight draw, and anyone holding a king is in big trouble.

Trips: If you have K 10 and the flop is 10 9 10, you’ve got trips. The only thing that you really have to worry about in this situation is someone having 9-10 and making a full house. Of course, that won’t happen very frequently. You should bet and raise as long as the board isn’t intimidating.

Flops You’ll Love

Straight Flush: There’s hardly any chance you will lose this hand. This hand is especially great when an opponent is holding two suited cards that match your straight flush. They’re in big trouble.

Four-of-a-kind: It is very unlikely you will loose with this hand. The only way is if there are two pair on board and you form quads with the smaller two pair, or a straight flush. You’ll seldom if ever lose with this hand.

Full House: This is a great hand, especially if the board reads something like 8 A A and you are holding 8 8. The only thing you have to worry about is someone having A-8 which isn’t likely but possible. Most of the time, someone with an Ace will hold something other than an 8 and you will probably take all there money.

Nut Flush: If you have an Ace-high flush after all the cards come out, and there is no pair on the board, eliminating the possibility of a full house, or four of a kind, you’ve got the best hand. Bet, raise, or go all in.

Nut Straight: If you have the highest possible straight, and there’s no possibility of a flush or full house, you’ve got the best hand. Bet and raise all you got.

Tips for winning play on the flop

The flop defines your hand. If the flop misses your hand, you should most likely release it.
When You flop a big hand, avoid allowing an opponent draw a card to beat you. You may be able to trap them, but if you believe they’re on the draw, force them out.
Be selective about hands you choose to play before and after the flop. Use caution, but be aggressive if you make a decision to play.
If you flop a draw, stick with it as long as the pot payoff is greater than the odds against making your hand. See pot odds.

2. Playing the Turn

The turn is the fourth community card that comes after the flop. A majority of the time you won’t even see the turn. You’ll throw away many hands pre-flop and release others when you find that the flop misses your hand. A poor player will diminish his chip stack one bet at a time. While a single bet may not seem like much in the long haul, it will break you.

If, you’ve made it to the turn, you should have a strong hand, a draw potentially leading to a strong hand, or reason to believe you can take the pot with a bluff.