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Handling The Turn With Marginal Hands in Shorthanded No Limit Hold ‘em

Most intermediate no limit players have a good sense of how to handle themselves in preflop and flop play, but play on the turn presents a unique challenge. In any contested pot against aggressive opponents, players are forced to evaluate more information, consider a wider array of options, and do so in a context of greatly increased risk. However, especially in shorthanded no limit play, the turn presents a great opportunity that many players miss out on — maximizing what seem to be marginal hands.

To illustrate some of the factors you should consider when deciding how to handle the turn, I’ll provide a sample hand from a $5-$10 no limit game online. We are five-handed and I am under the gun. I am dealt

Tc 7c

I limp.

I know there are people reading this who would want an entirely different article to justify the limp. To offer a summary of that article if I were to write it: I regard tens as face cards five-handed, and I play suited two gaps with a face card five-handed. I don’t throw away these hands because it’s just too easy to pick up pots with aggressive flop play this short, and the top and middle pairs you make with them are often good to boot.

All fold to the big blind, who raises to $40. The big blind is an aggressive player who raises like clockwork from all positions. I call.

The flop comes out

10 d 9s 8d

I don’t mind this flop at all, especially since I have no reason to give my opponent credit for any kind of hand. With the pot at $85, my opponent leads out for $40. At this point, he has a little over 3000 chips, and I have about 1000. The action here will significantly influence play on the turn, so let’s unpack his bet.

Since he was an aggressive player and had raised preflop, I could easily interpret the bet as a standard continuation play. The size of the bet isn’t unreasonable a half pot, but it is a little on the small side. There are a few things smaller flop bets from a preflop raiser tend to mean: “I have nothing, and I’m hoping you don’t either”; “I have a huge hand, and I want you to raise”; “I have a weak draw, and I’d like to see the turn cheaply.”

My options come down to call, a small raise, or a large raise. I have top pair, the low end of an open ended straight draw, and position. I consider the number of cards I don’t want to see on the turn (significant), the likelihood that my opponent will fold to a bet (also significant), and the chance of my opponent coming back over the top of me (not entirely insignificant). With some chances to improve and the aggressive nature of my opponent in mind, I raise to $115.

This raise should accomplish a few things. First, it will usually end the hand if my opponent has nothing or a holding like bottom pair or a weak gutshot. Second, it charges my opponent a little over 3-to-1, which should be too high a price for most of his reasonable draws, say. a straight draw with the jack or a low flush draw. I would expect an aggressive opponent to play a strong draw (flush and gut or better) far stronger on the flop.

Finally, it gets me a little closer to finding out what his original bet meant. He calls, making the pot $315 , and the turn comes a pretty looking 4s for a board of

10 d 9s 8d 4s

My opponent thinks for a second and bets out $125.

Do I fold, call, raise small or raise large? I’ve found that a lot of intermediate players will freeze in this situation and just call. You show strength on the flop, the turn comes a non-obvious card, and your opponent continues betting into you anyway. I’ll admit that it can be hard to pull the trigger in this spot.

Another common response is to raise again, but weakly. I think both plays are mistakes against this type of opponent, and I’ll explain why by running through some factors you should be considering when you’re in a similar spot on the turn.

The first factor you analyze on the turn is obvious, but still critical: What could the turn do for my opponent, and how does that impact my impression of his hand on the flop? In this case, a four is really unlikely to have helped his hand. He could have something like Ad 4d, but the majority of hands just aren’t helped here. If a queen or an eight hit and my opponent bet, I might have to re-evaluate what I thought I knew from the flop, but at this point, whatever conclusion I’m able to draw about my opponent’s hand on the flop is probably still valid here on the turn.

Another thing to consider is how the opponent’s play on the turn can be more sharply defined by his flop play. Notice that this turn bet in isolation isn’t all that significant; people underbet the pot all the time. However, in the greater context of the hand, this bet marks the third time my normally aggressive opponent has shown weakness: a weak bet on the flop, a call, and now a weak bet in the turn. While I’m still unwilling to rule out a monster trap completely, I’m also aware that aggressive players make their money by playing a majority of their hands — weak and strong — aggressively. Three weak moves in a row have me leaning toward putting him on a draw.

The next important factor in turn play helps to further define the opponent’s hand. What does your opponent think you have, based on your flop play, and what does that reveal about his turn play? On the flop, I said that I had the best hand with my bet. My opponent can believe me, put me on a draw, or put me on a bluff. The flop seems like a poor one for me to bluff at, so I think we can reasonably put that interpretation aside. Putting me on a draw is perfectly reasonable, as is putting me on a decent hand defending against draws.

Now he bets. If he has a strong hand and puts me on a draw, why is he charging me so little? If he has a very strong hand and puts me on a strong hand, why isn’t he betting the larger amount such a hand would be willing to call here? Even hands as strong as a set or a straight will usually bet larger here in an attempt to make me call incorrectly with draws or commit me to a second best hand.

Using that logic, I’m pretty set on reading my opponent’s bet as indicating a weak hand or draw. If I’m confident in my read, a call is terrible, and a small raise gives my opponent almost direct odds for strong draws and implied odds for most other reasonable draws.

A final factor to contemplate is what your turn play will communicate to your opponent and what scenarios might result on the river. For example: If I call here, what am I saying? Well, on the flop, I said I had the best hand with my bet, and the turn doesn’t give me any reason to stop saying that. Since my opponent knows I think the four couldn’t have helped him, a call here effectively says that I was only representing the best hand on the flop, and now I have doubts about the strength of my hand. That’s a dangerous thing to communicate to an aggressive player when you have a marginal hand with plenty of possible scare cards to come on the river.

Remember, a call will still leave me with about $750 and a pot of $565, so my opponent will be able to present a credible threat. If I raise small, I’m saying that I have a marginal hand and will possibly fold to a scare card on the river, although the small raise would come closer to cuffing me than the call does. If I raise about $250 and get called, I’m left with about $500 and would be calling all-in (if my opponent made a move on the river) at about 3-to-1. Again, he can present a credible threat.

But what happens when I raise large? A few good things. One, I reinforce my communication from the flop play. At this point, my opponent must lean toward putting me on a strong hand. If I raise to $400, I’m left with only $350, and it should be clear to my opponent that if he calls, he’s probably going to have to show down the best hand to win. Since I’ve been saying I have a strong hand, and my opponent has been saying that he probably has a weaker one, I raise to $400. My opponent has to call at about 3-to-1 ($275 more to win $840), plus I have $350 left. Thus, his best implied scenario is about 4.5-to-1.

I’m a little surprised when he calls. My raise should have been enough to weed out all marginal draws, and I really would expect a strong draw to have made a stronger move earlier. I expect the worst when the river comes, but it’s a wonderfully comforting 2c.

My opponent checks, I check behind him, and he shows down Jh 4c . Oddly, the turn did help him. Go figure.

In the end, turn play requires more attention and analysis in shorthanded situations than a lot of players realize. The trick is to strike a balance between viewing the turn as a continuation of the flop and viewing the turn as an isolated event. By considering all of the information you have from both contexts, you should be able to recognize opportunities to build and win large pots, even when the strength of your cards doesn’t quite seem to warrant it.

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