The Turn and River Plays in Limit Holdem

At the turn and river play in limit Holdem, the hands should have been played well. It is important to see that success at these points mostly depends on how we have developed our hand and sized up other players' hands.

Betting potential at the turn in limit Holdem depends largely on the play status as a whole. We mean here the status of our hand, other players' hands, how we have discerned their situations and their patterns, how we have exploited our position and their positions, and the overall betting that have taken place. Remember that often a check-raise on the turn would mean that a player managed a two-pair hand, at least, when we're talking of a multi-way pot

For all we know our hunch may be true and our high pair might indeed be lagging behind in the game. If we see that we're up against a strong hand, we may be better off getting rid of our hand, looking for another. But if we play heads up or if we're playing against smart and fiddly opponents we must take all risks and call the strong hand. Maintaining an aggressive play is important on the turn. Don't waste hitting the flop with our strong starting hand, and our bet and raise on the flop. Let's keep on the aggression. Timidity in limit Holdem will not be settled comfortably with any card, bad or good.

As long as we're in some good shape we must bet. A timid play will have us losing on big bets. A play on the turn reveals players who really have strong hands. When playing heads up and the opponent has not hit any card, we and the opponent are just about in the same situation, so we would rather take the risk and bet.

At the river, when the opponent still plays, the opponent's hand is probably worth something. If we ignored improving our starting hand (say it's an AK) to the river and somebody calls us betting would probably do us little good, especially when betting out somebody stronger than us. With one opponent, we should check and call. But with several opponents, we should check or fold.

If our holdings are average we should be very careful with our bet. We must always see if there's any hand we can outdo which the best hand can call our bet with. But in most cases our bets would mean nothing. We should probably just fold.