Seeing double: What to do when the turn pairs the board

¹. The curious reader may be pleased to learn that the best turns in the deck for our range when we have a tight pre-flop range are {T-K}. With a loose range, the cards {2, 4, 5, 6, 9, T} are best, along with diamonds (since the non-A BDFD appears often). Unsurprisingly, rainbow turns are among the worst for our range. For this article, we are focused on the pairing turns. The turns {A,8,3} either make their range {very strong, bluff-catcher, medium-strength} respectively.

On the As turn, we have close to zero fold equity. The discussion below should be read in the knowledge that our turn range is close to a 90%-10% dog against our opponent’s turn range. We cannot fire the turn with a high frequency unless our opponent check/folds everything that isn’t a boat on the river. In principle our opponent could realize this and make some tight folds when we barrel the turn. In practice, almost all opponents will call every Axxx that they hold. It follows that we should rarely bet the turn and not the river on a bluff or even semi-bluff. Note that KK65ss only has 19.5% equity against non-boat{ Axxx} and 12.5% against all {Axxx}. If you are going to bet the As turn, then bet POT. The next piece of information you need is that, if your opponent did not already have a boat on the turn and never slow-plays flop and turn, he will fill up only 18% of the time on the river. If he is the slow-playing type, he will have a boat by the river 38% of the time². If he takes the ‘standard’ approach of check-raising  the A8 boat but not the A3 then he will have a boat by the river 25% of the time. All of these numbers point to an extremely profitable vacuum triple-barrel on the A pair, and an extremely unprofitable vacuum double-barrel. Presently, most tight players 1+done here without the goods, and most loose players fire two and give up. If your opponent is likely to call/call/call with AK here then he will have a hand he can call with around 55% of the time on the river, {Q,J,T} make the worst barrel cards against this opponent (calls increase to 65%) and the K itself is the best. If he will call with AQ+ then the triple barrel is terrible and you should not bet the turn. On a final note, the backdoor flush coming in is much better for you than your opponent. With one of his cards guaranteed to be a non-flush A, it is much harder for him to have a flush on the river than for you. If your opponent will fold AK on the flushing river then triple barrel the flushing card every time.

On the 8d turn, our first concern is that 17% of our opponent’s range is {A8, AA}, even if he 3bets many AA pre-flop, provided he check-calls the flop with his two pair and sets. In contrast, only 9% of ours is from UTG and about 4% with a wide button range! Fortunately, between 11-14% of our range contains a bare 8, whereas our opponent has virtually zero non-boat 8s in his turn range. As before, with one of his cards guaranteed to be a non-diamond A, it is rare he makes a back-door flush (10% of his Axxx), whereas we will have the rivered flush 20-25% of the time. In practice, the weakest hand we can value bet the turn with is AK, yet many nitty opponents will make tight folds with their non-boat hands and so we can double-barrel air with a high frequency. Against these opponents, triple-barreling is foolhardy, whereas those opponents who are cogniscent that they should continue with many of their {Axxx} hands on the turn will frequently decide to fold the river unimproved. Your opponent makes an even better target if he refuses to check a full house three streets, since his river range is then capped at AK/rivered top two on most river cards. Despite the reality that we are a 33%-67% equity dog range versus range on the turn, the middle card pairing provides an excellent opportunity to continue our aggression until our opponent adjusts. Note that our opponent’s equity distribution is quite polarized, which accounts for the favourable bluff spot, in contrast to his smoother distribution in the final example below.

On the 3s turn, the discussion is dominated by a fact that is counter-intuitive. If your opponent only calls the flop with {Axxx,88,33,AA} then his range on the turn is much stronger than yours irrespective of pre-flop ranges. Over 50% of our opponent’s turn range will be {AKxx + two live cards or better}, whereas only 20% of my UTG range fits this description. If you are opening from the BT with a wide range and C-betting this flop close to 100% of the time when checked to, then you have around 24% ‘strong’ hands. Unfortunately for the aggressor, tight players will have as much as 27% of their range {A8 or better} when they just flat the flop with {Axxx,88} even when they 3-bet all of their AA. The numbers are thus very much against frequently potting the turn and giving up on the river, since that strategy allows a solid opponent to continue a strong range to the river (58% of his hands are AK+). Once you realise the weakest hand we can value bet here is {AKxx} with the ‘xs’ both live, you will be far less inclined to waste a second bullet here since you have the weaker turn range³. The natural question is, how do we exploit a villain who plays in this fashion? Your mistake is on the flop, not the turn, since you tend to C-bet 70%+ on the flop often and permit your opponent to take a tight range to the turn. If you make much smaller C-bets on these boards, then he must either include hands weaker than top pair in his continuing range or you have already beaten him when you start playing straightforwardly on later streets⁴. When you do continue, pot the turn with a range consisting of {AKxx, 3,AA,88,8,A8, any BDFD} and barrel most rivers with all of your value hands better than AK (including a bare 3 on a flushing river) and around 70% of your bluffs⁵.

This article has given you a solid grounding on what to think about on board pairing turns. Be sure to check back next week for the second part in the series, where we address pairing turns on a Q high flop.

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Quad