Betting the turn again

In this lesson

• Bet the turn again with value and with bluffs that have equity when the card helps you.
• Choose second-barrel bluffs that can improve or that block the caller's best hands.
• Give up on turn cards that help the caller.
• Plan the river before you bet the turn.

Read first: Kinds of turn card · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: Bet sizing and polarisation, Blockers and unblockers, Continuation betting

What a second barrel costs

The button opened to 2.5 bb, the big blind called, the button bet 1.8 bb on the flop and was called. The turn pot is 5.5 + 1.8 + 1.8 = 9.1 bb, with 100 − 2.5 − 1.8 = 95.7 bb behind.

A turn bet of three quarters of the pot is about 6.8 bb. As a pure bluff it needs folds 6.8 / (9.1 + 6.8), about 42.8% of the time: alpha again, and much more than the quarter or so a small flop bet needed. The big blind's range is also stronger now: its weakest hands folded on the flop.

So the turn bet must earn more than folds. Value hands want calls from worse; bluffs need either cards that favour your range or equity of their own when called.

Which hands keep betting

In Rail's solves of the button's turn after a called flop bet, the classes split cleanly.

• Sets and other strong hands bet most of the time, unless the card completes the caller's draws: they want the pot to grow before the river.
• Draws bet often: they win when the big blind folds and still improve when it calls.
• Hands with no pair and no draw bet a lot on cards that favour the button, and give up on the cards that do not.
• Middle pairs and weak top pairs check most: they beat the bluffs that would call and lose to the hands that would.

Plan the river before you bet

A second barrel is the start of a plan, not the end of one. Before betting, know which rivers you will bet again and which you will give up on. A bluff that cannot continue on most rivers has only one street of folds to win, and the price above says it needs a lot of them.

Blockers help choose between bluffs that look alike: a hand holding a card the big blind needs for its best calls removes some of them. Lesson R1 counts that properly; on the turn it is a tie-breaker, not a reason.

Practising it

The split shows the button's whole range on one turn, after its flop bet was called and the big blind checked, by hand category. The drills then deal single hands where Rail's solve mixes.

Turn solves on demand: the charts' ranges narrowed through the flop by Rail's heuristic model, with one turn bet size (three quarters of the pot) and all-in when the stacks are short.

Rules of thumb

• A turn bluff of three quarters of the pot needs about 43% folds; give it equity or a good card.
• Bet the turn with strong hands and draws; give up most middle pairs.
• Air bets the cards that favour your range and checks the ones that favour the caller.
• Decide which rivers you will bet before you bet the turn.

When they break

• Against a big blind who calls the turn with any pair, bet fewer bluffs and more thin value.
• Against one who folds too much to a second bet, barrel more of your air on any card.

Example hands

Practice

The lesson is mastered when every exercise below that Rail can grade is passed. Missed items come back later as review cards.