In this post we look at these turn spots and why we will be looking to check them back as pot control.
The turn card is arguably the least correctly played street of action… so we will want to get this one right as the pot’s getting larger, the bets will be pretty polarised at this point towards value or bluff as ranges are narrowed after pre-flop and flop action.
Top Pair Strong Kicker, wet turn card
So in this tournament pot, we 3-Bet preflop on the Button with AQo
We get a good flop for our hand with top pair second kicker, we bet the flop and get called, let’s see how we play the turn…
On this turn card, we have a question of what we should do if we think our opponent will only ever raise us when we are beat and never with a semi-bluff then we can comfortably bet this turn card for value against all the remaining draws and worse pairs.
But if our opponent is capable of bluffing here somewhat, the lower variance line for us to realise our equity is to check back this wet turn card, here are some reasons why this is a solid line to take:
- We will minimise our losses when we are against a strong hand as combinations of diamonds and Q9 just caught up on the turn as well as hands like A8 AT and AJ having us beat.
- We can get value from when our opponent bluffs the river when we check back the turn from hands that would simply fold if we bet again.
- Our hand will look weak when we check back, so any river bet we make could get looked up from our opponent trying to pick off a bluff.
The Result
So what did we end up doing in this pot?
We opted to check the pot back because the open-ender on the flop got there as well as the flopped flush draw, so we are just beaten in this pot a fair bit and there is no way we can get three streets of value in this pot.
What happened on the River?
The river was a blank with the 3♣ hitting the board, nothing changed.
Our opponent checked the river to us and we were able to go for a thin value bet looking to get called by a worse one pair hand… we get called and show our top pair top kicker and our opponent mucks.
Top Pair on a Dry Board
Pretty different to the last hand, this time the board is very dry with our opponent defending from the Small blind we are either going to be way ahead or way behind on this board, so this is always a good time for pot control…
In this hand we raised from the Cut-Off and got called in the Small blind, we see a flop of King high and C-Bet small. This is always a good idea to do with our strong hands and bluffs because we put our opponent’s range of hands in tough spots.
Because what should they do with their Queen or Ace highs when we bet small, they should call a decent amount, especially with backdoor draws, this is exactly the types of hands we want to call us because we have a huge equity advantage against those hands.
So how do we continue on this blank turn…
We could look to build the pot against worse Kings and lower pairs, however, most of these aren’t likely to call three streets of betting… so what merits are there to checking back the turn…
- We will keep in our opponent’s bluffs
- We are pot controlling against any 5x which will be looking to check-raise this turn
- We make our hand look weaker by not continuing to bet so we will be balanced and have a protected check back turn range for future pots in this spot…
Meaning we won’t be easy to bluff of hands on the river when we have strong hands in our check back turn range along with weaker holdings which we may look to get to showdown like 66-QQ on this board as an example.
Sum Up
Whilst these are not the lines we should always be taking in pots, knowing how many streets of value we can get from our hand strength and checking back some turn cards is a very important part of an overall balanced strategy.
These pots are just two real examples of when can be a good time to exercise this line in pots, whilst it can be pot control it also throws our opponents off the scent of a strong hand and ends up gaining us extra value where we wouldn’t have found it before.
Do you play Poker on 888?
If not, we have a great sign up offer for our readers…
Sign up today with our great offer and get FREE MONEY!
888Poker has some amazing tournaments and cash games with something to suit all bankrolls.
Use the link below and claim your FREE PLAY on this great poker site, without even having to deposit!!!
This is one of the only Poker Sites offering this to new players, so jump in the action today and win some money…