Poker Lesson 4: Flop Play

Having gone through the Perils of the Preflop, it is now time to move on and look at flop play. The flop is one of the most important streets. This is where our hands will become better defined, where the pot will start to grow. It is not uncommon for players to go all-in on the flop. While sound preflop hand selection is the foundation of No Limit, it is just that – a foundation. A foundation on which we need to build by playing good poker from the flop and onwards!

It is on the flop that we see how good our hand is and what potential it has. It is on the flop we make important decisions that decide how much of our stack we are willing to invest. Before the flop, all we knew was our own two holecards, but now, with the three flop cards on the table, we have so much more information on which to base our decisions.

There are three types of hands we can have on the flop:

1) Foldable ones. Frustratingly often, our sweet little suited connector will miss the flop completely, and we will be forced to fold. Or the flop will come something along the lines of KJ8 and our 77 will no longer feel like a winner. It is these hands that we check and fold waiting for better days. (One exception is the times when we should use a continuation bet, something I will address at the end of this lesson).

2) Made hands. These are hands that are probably will be winners without improvement, hands like AA on a KT7 flop, or a flopped set. There will be the lovely times when our suited connector will make a delightful straight, or a solid two pair. Most of the times, we will bet our made hands hard.

3) Drawing hands. Let us assume a 982 flop. If we hold JT, we have what is known as an open ended straight draw (OESD). We might also flop a flush draw, if the flop contains two of our suit. These hands are drawing hands.

How does this affect our play then?

The key to playing good No Limit poker is selective aggression and getting paid. The most common mistake that beginners make is not betting at all (slowplaying), or betting too little, with a made hand in fear of everyone folding. This is a bad line of thought.

The best way to win a big pot is to bet and raise already on the flop. If we have been the aggressors preflop and get a good flop, we should bet our made hand and hope someone calls or raises. Sure, a portion of the time everybody will fold, but by betting and/or raising, we give ourselves the chance of a big score. We need to make the pot big already on the flop, in order to win as much as possible.

Aggressiveness is of utmost importance. The thing with poker is that if we bet and no-one has anything, we probably won’t win a big pot anyway. The big wins come from flopping a great hand when someone else makes the second best hand, not from checking and keeping the pot small.

When we flop two pair or better, our goal should be to get as much money in as possible on the flop. With one pair hands (AK on a K-high flop or KK on a J83 flop, for example) we need to be a bit more careful on the latter streets. We might need to slow down on the turn if facing resistance, but generally speaking, at least on the lower limits, an overpair or top pair top kicker is a good enough hand to play for your entire stack on the flop.

Another mistake beginners often make when betting is to bet too small. The best way of keeping track of your bet sizes is to look at the size of the pot. A good rule of thumb is to bet between two thirds to the full amount of the pot. So, if the pot on the flop is 12 dollars, we should bet between 8-12 dollars. Not less.

There are a few occasions when we should slowplay. These are the times when we flop a true monster and we need to let our opponent catch up. We give a free card and hope that somebody makes the second best hand on the turn. For example, if we hold TT and the flop comes T44, we can check the flop (and just call if someone else bets) and hope that we get paid on the turn. However, should our opponents check to us again on the turn, we need to bet. There is no use in slowplaying on two streets.

Playing drawing hands is a different matter. Sometimes, it is correct to play them aggressively. Sometimes, it is correct to play them passively. Other times, it is best to just fold. It all depends on the texture of the board, the actions of the other players, our outs and our pot odds. More on this in the next articles, where we will take a detailed look on outs and pot odds and how to play draws in different situations.

To conclude this article some short words on foldable hands and the continuation bet. There will be times when we from late position raise hands like 33 or JT. More times than not, we will miss the flop. However, since we were the aggressors preflop, we are able to pick up the pot with a continuation bet a large portion of the time. Our opponents are likely to have missed the flop as well, and will fold to our bet. We should continuation bet if all of the following conditions are met:

1) We were the preflop aggressors from late position;
2) No more than two players called our preflop bet;
3) Our opponents check to us on the flop.