The turn is a very important betting round in no limit hold’em. It is at this stage of the hand that the bets start to escalate towards stack committing stages. Let us look at an example here to see what I mean. You have a $100 stack in NL100 and raise pre-flop to $3.50 and it gets two callers with both blinds folding making the pot $12 on the flop. Your stack is still $96.50 and so 96.5% of what you started with. The pre-flop betting round has seen you only use 3.5% of your pre flop stack. Let us say that you bet almost the pot on the flop and make it $10 and that bet gets called by one player making the pot $32. The bet on the flop still only represented 10% of what your pre flop stack was and you still have $86.50 left to bet or in other words 86.5% of what you had pre-flop. So you have raised pre flop and bet almost the pot on the flop but yet you have still only used 14% of your stack at this stage. But yet let us see what happens on the turn if you want to make another near pot sized bet. Let us say that you want to bet $30. Not only is this bet a far more significant 30% of your pre flop stack but it is also around 35% of what you have left on the table. This is a very significant bet for two key reasons and far more significant than the pre flop and flop bets combined. A $30 turn bet is huge when compared to the total money invested on the previous two betting rounds which was only $13.50 combined. If this $30 bet gets called then the pot is going to be $92 and you are only going to have $56.50 left. This is little more than half the pot and you are now looking at possibly stacking off and committing all of your stack. All this assumes of course the previous betting sequence but when there has been action on the pre flop and flop betting rounds then the turn is a pivotal round. In a way it is akin to the smaller betting rounds in limit hold’em on the pre flop and flop rounds compared to when the bets double on the turn and river betting rounds. In fact if you use this limit hold’em example as a framework then it will help you to remember the key stage of the hand if there has been action on the two previous streets. This statement isn’t sweeping of course as pots can get all in at any stage of the hand with any betting sequence. This is just like limit hold’em where it is perfectly possible for more money to go into the pot pre-flop and on the flop than on the later bigger betting rounds. But in general then the turn is a key stage in both forms of poker! This also means that the loose-aggressive style can be very effective on the pre-flop and flop betting rounds in both forms of poker. However when the betting becomes very serious in no limit hold’em on the later rounds then many LAG’s simply switch to orthodox play.

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