Q&A #39: Should a Scary Turn Card Freeze You?

Jacob,

The key to limit hold ‘em is to save pots, not bets. Don’t look for giant laydowns in big pots. There’s no way I’d even consider laying down after a turn checkraise. You have too many possible outs against too many different hands.

And the turn raise could be on as little as top pair or the A:spade:, maybe with a paired kicker. Don’t get tunnel vision. People aren’t predictable, and you simply can’t assume that everyone always has the goods when they raise.

Furthermore, even if your opponent showed you a straight, you should still call the turn, as you have nine outs against a straight.

No, when I made the comment about a third player, I wasn’t talking about a cold-call. Again, you’re getting umptillion-to-1, you don’t fold an overpair for one bet. I was talking about another player in there raising. If it could three more bets on the turn, then you have to start thinking about what to do. But when it’s only one more back to you, it’s an auto-call.

Definitely, your outs should be discounted. After all, you could even be drawing stone dead.

The problem is, you don’t really know what your opponent has, so you don’t know which cards are outs. If your opponent has two pair, the board pairing might be outs. If your opponent has a straight, then a spade might be an out (and the board pairing won’t help you at all). If your opponent has the A:spade:, then you could be ahead, and a spade could be the card that beats you.

Every one of your possible “outs” should be discounted. But overall, when you add everything up, you have too large a chance to win, given the size of the pot, to fold. You basically just have to sigh, put the money in, and hope you win.

Note, this is true only because the pot is large. In a small pot, a “let’s just hope something good happens for me” attitude will sink you. But when the pot is this large, you need to stick it out. (Though I wouldn’t necessarily fold this overpair in a small pot either.)