Recently I wrote an article entitled ‘Static and Dynamic Board Textures’ that covered the two major concepts that should guide the way we play different types of flops, turns and rivers in Hold’em. Since these concepts are so fundamental to understanding the way we should play each different type of spot, I thought it would be useful to explain each one in more detail.
Dynamic flops (indeed, dynamic boards in general, since turns and rivers can also be dynamic) are some of the toughest flops to play, since they result in the greatest levels of ambiguity regarding the strength of certain hands and ranges.
Most of the time on a dynamic flop, the majority of hands will have between 35-65% equity, in contrast to a very static flop where some hands may have as little as 10% or as much as 90% equity.
This should cause us to play dynamic flops very differently to static ones – different bet sizings, different choices as regards the hands we put in our betting ranges, and a lot more unusual lines being taken, such as leading the flop out of position, check-raising as the preflop raiser, and check-calling the flop with the intention of leading the turn. Let’s look at some of the fundamentals of these kinds of flops.
Consider the strength of the flop for each player’s range
The most important aspect of playing any flop correctly – whether we’re the preflop raiser, the preflop caller, or one of multiple preflop callers – is to identify which player in the hand has the range advantage. In most cases, this will be the preflop raiser, but as the board gets more and more dynamic, we start to see a shift in favour of the preflop caller.
The next factor, beyond simple dynamicity, that determines the range advantage in a given spot is the strength of the board, i.e. how easy it is for each player to make pairs, two pairs and sets, rather than just the number of potential flush draws, straight draws and overcards that could hit the turn.
For example, a board of K-Q-J monotone is very strong for the preflop raiser despite being quite dynamic, while a board of 9-8-7 monotone is likely to be stronger for the preflop caller, and slightly more dynamic since there are more overcards.
Our strategy on each flop should be largely determined by how strong the flop is for our range – on flops that smash our range really hard, we should adopt more aggressive strategies with both value hands and bluffs, and on dynamic flops that are less good for our range we should adopt a more cautious strategy, even as the preflop raiser.
Of course, this approach requires a sound understanding of our own ranges in each spot, which is why self-awareness is such a crucial part of poker strategy – we need to understand our own strategy as well as our opponent’s. Adopting aggressive strategies on boards that favour our opponent as a result of neglecting to consider the weakness of our own range is a recipe for disaster.
Avoid slowplaying with ‘vulnerable equity’
Since equities run much closer together on these boards, this demands we adopt a strategic approach that takes into account the likelihood of future board cards changing our equity. Of course, there are two primary ways in which this can hurt us when we have high-equity hands (whether they might be strong draws or strong value hands) – either we can lose the hand as a result of a decrease in equity coming from a future board card, or we can lose value as a result of a board card that scares our opponent into folding frequently.
This means we’re strongly incentivized to raise on the flop when we have a high-equity hand – this might seem obvious, but it’s easily forgotten. Even in cases when we flop the nuts on a dynamic flop – for example, flopping the nut flush – we should be wary of the fact that we might lose value from an opponent who flopped a set or a straight if we slowplay to a significant degree.
It applies to strong draws also, since a board card that doesn’t improve our hand will often drastically reduce our equity. For example, if we have 9s-8s and the flop comes 7s-6s-3d, we’re likely to have 55-60% equity against a lot of ranges, so it feels like a great spot to start piling chips in, and in most cases this is true.
But if we choose to just call and we miss the turn – let’s say the turn is the Qd or the 2h – then our equity is essentially cut in half, and we don’t yet have any showdown value. This is in contrast to a middle-strength value hand like 8h-7h on the same board – a middle-strength value hand has fewer outs to improve to a strong one, but it has much more durable equity and maintains some playability even on very bad turn cards, as well as being able to win at showdown much more frequently, so it’s a much better candidate for calling rather than raising.
Use larger bet sizes for value against weaker players
These concepts are useful no matter who we’re playing against, but when we’re up against weaker players we can start to consider using strategies that might be a lot more overtly exploitable. Probably the best way to do this is to use bigger bet sizings on dynamic boards against more passive players with the intent of extracting maximum value from our big hands before a board card can come that might be bad for us.
One good example of this might be when we make a flush on a board containing four cards to a straight – this is a great spot to use very large bet sizes or even overbet shoves, since we can expect a weak villain will be unwilling to ever consider folding the upper end of the straight to a bet of any size, while they will be unlikely to give us much value at all with hands weaker than that even if we did bet smaller.
This approach is best used at any time when you have a well-concealed value hand, since those are usually the times when weak villains will be unable to find the fold button with any decent bluff-catchers. It’s particularly effective on the river in a spot where a flush draw has missed, or on low-card flops where we’re not the preflop raiser and our opponent’s range contains a lot of overpairs.
Make use of turns and rivers that help your range
Finally, it’s always crucial to keep an eye on what upcoming board cards do for our range, not just our hand. In situations where the board card is very good for our range, we can adopt more aggressive strategies – this might include calling turn to raise the river, check-raising turn to bet the river, check-calling the flop to lead out on the turn, or even check-calling flop and turn to lead out on the river if appropriate. In these spots, the ‘betting lead’ is significantly less important than the range advantage.
Indeed, the betting lead only exists because of range advantage – the preflop raiser usually has the advantage, and thus they usually have the betting lead. But on dynamic flops, there will be times when the equities of both ranges run very close together, and on these occasions it’s very important to understand our own ranges and our opponents’ ranges in as much detail as possible. If you can do that, you’ll be on the right track towards playing these difficult spots a lot more effectively.