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Texas hold’em is a game of information availability – and when you go through a hold’em hand, regardless of whether it’s fixed-limit, pot-limit or no-limit hold’em, you need to be able to read the board and understand what it’s telling you. This is critically important.

The first step is to evaluate the composition of the board. This means working out what hand you hold based on your two hole cards and those on the board. But it’s also important that you connect the dots and have an awareness of what the best possible hand (the nuts) might be. Knowing what the nuts is on any given board is second nature to seasoned poker players, but it’s not always so obvious to beginners. Hopefully by the end of this lesson it will be.

Rainbow Riches Casino. Rainbow Riches – so good, we gave it a home. Discover a wonderful world of more than 150 online slots, casino, bingo and poker games at Rainbow Riches Casino – winner of ‘Best New Slots Site’ at the WhichBingo Awards 2020. A rainbow board is a board where no flush can be possible. This means that when the term is used on the turn, it is usually used to describe a four card board, each with different suits. On the turn, any other suit alignment would lead to either a flush or a flush draw as a possibility.

Common Flop Textures

The flop is a defining moment in hold’em and can be made up of many different card combinations. Here are a few examples of common flop textures you will see when playing hold’em:

The Rainbow Flop

A rainbow flop means all three cards are of different suits. A rainbow flop means nobody can hold a flush without drawing on both the turn and the river, as the maximum number of suited cards a player could have at this point is three (two in the hole plus one on the board). If the turn is a card of the fourth suit, then a flush defintely won’t be possible.

The Flush Draw Flop

This flop has two cards of the same suit (spades), which means the maximum number of suited cards a player could have at this point is four. If a player has four suited cards then he’s said to be “on a flush draw”, and could have two opportunities for hitting a flush – on the turn or on the river.

The Suited Flop

If the flop contains three suited cards then someone could already have a made flush, with the two cards in their hand. These types of flops are very dangerous if you have hit part of it, but not the flush. Your hand is also under threat by players who might have just one spade in their hand and are drawing to a flush.

The Paired Flop

Whenever the board shows a pair, the possible hands available increases to include full houses and four of a kinds. Therefore you should immediately realize that your opponent’s could be holding these big hands.

There are many more types of flops, such as trip flops, straight flops, and so on. The important thing to remember is that you analyze the texture of the flop at all times. It’s free information and is available for all to see – so don’t ignore it. In fact, the texture of the flop should heavily influence how you play a hand.

Knowing Your Best Hand

In order to be properly prepared for playing poker it’s essential that you can read the board and work out your best possible hand. It’s easy to do, yet even experienced players make mistakes and mis-read boards from time to time.

Example #1

The best hand you can make here would for a full house.

Example #2

In this example you’re best hand is for a King-high flush.

Example #3

In this example your best hand is for a straight. You could use one of the 4′s in your hand but it doesn’t make any difference because you’re effectively “playing the board”.

The Nuts

The term “the nuts” means you have an unbeatable hand based on the board. When playing poker you should always think about what your opponents might have, so it’s important that you can read the board to work out what the nuts might be.

See if you can work out which starting hands would give the nuts in the following examples:

Example #1

This board doesn’t contain any pairs and only two suited cards. The best possible hand would be a straight, for anyone holding 10-7 (suited or unsuited). It would give a straight of 6789T. What would be the second best hole cards? That would be 7-5, giving a lower straight of 56789.

Example #2

Rainbow Holdem Poker

The nuts on this board would be four of a kind since the board is paired. Anyone holding would have quads. What would be the second nut hand? Well since there are also a pair of 6’s on the board, anyone holding would have the second nuts.

Example #3

The board isn’t paired and there are only two suited cards, so we can discount a flush or better. A straight is also impossible since there are too many gaps to fill. The best hand here would be pocket Kings, giving a set. The second best would be pocket Jacks, for a lower set.

Understanding the Strength of Your Hand

Sometimes the board can render those two private cards that you’ve been dealt as absolutely priceless, or absolutely worthless, or somewhere in-between. You must learn to read the board and fully understand the relative strength of your hand and what potential opportunities or dangers lay ahead.

Let’s revisit the example hands we used earlier and determine how strong your hand really is.

Example #1

You have a full house, but you could be losing to players with the following hole cards: TT, JJ, JT, T3, T2, and 33. So while you have a full house, your hand is only the eighth best hand available. You still have a strong hand, but it’s by no means the nuts.

Example #2

You have a flush but you could be losing to any player who is holding the , or . Therefore you have the fourth best hand based on this board.

Example #3

You are “playing the board” which shows a straight. But you would lose to any players holding a single 8 for the higher straight. Any player with an 8 would be in very big trouble if someone else had 8-9 in the hole for the nut straight.

SWOT Analysis

In the business world it’s common to perform a SWOT analysis of a company, and SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Well, we can take this approach to poker too. Let’s look at some example starting hands and flops, and perform a SWOT analysis on them.

Example #1

• Strengths – You have flopped a set of 7’s, a very strong hand.
• Weaknesses – Well you don’t have the nuts, as this would be a player holding K-K, but you have the 2nd nuts – so there’s no real weakness at this stage.
• Opportunities – Your hand can still improve. Another 7 would give you quads, and a 5 or K on the turn or river would give a full house.
• Threats – The biggest threat to your hand is another club on the turn or river, which could make someone else a flush. While a King would give you a full house, it could also give someone else a bigger full house (i.e. if they were holding K-5 or K-7).

Example #2

• Strengths – You have flopped an open ended straight draw (5678), and a flush draw. Put simply, you’ve flopped a great drawing hand.
• Weaknesses – The weakness is that you need to hit. If the hand stopped here you have nothing but 8 high and would certainly be beaten.
• Opportunities – This hand offers great opportunities, and the best outcome would be to hit a 4 or 9 on the turn or river for the straight, as this would give you the nuts (if it isn’t a spade).
• Threats – While this hand gives a flush draw, it would be a low flush and therefore vulnerable to a higher flush. While a flush is better than a straight, the straight would place your hand in a stronger position. The lesson here is that you don’t always want the highest possible poker hand ranking for yourself, but to have one better than your opponents.

Example #3

• Strengths – It’s a rainbow flop and you have a pair of aces, the highest pair available.
• Weaknesses – Your kicker is weak. You could be losing to a lot of hands. Even though you hold suited cards, there is no possibility of hitting a flush.
• Opportunities – Another Ace would give you trips and another 5 would bring two pair.
• Threats – Due to the weak kicker this hand is always vulnerable and could get you into a lot of trouble. This is a prime example of why playing Ace-rag is not a good starting hand, because you never really know where you are.

From Nuts to Nowhere!

Let’s imagine you’re playing poker and the following happens:

What’s your hand at this point? Well, you have flopped the nuts with an Ace high straight. If you were to perform a SWOT analysis at this stage it would be very healthy. The only slight danger is the potential flush draw. Let’s imagine you bet and get called, and the turn brings:

You no longer have the nuts because the board is now paired. Let’s imagine you still believe you’re winning and you get to see the river card:

This is a terrible river card. Not only does the river bring another club, meaning a possible flush, it also double pairs the board. You’re now losing if any of your opponents have just a single Queen or Jack, or two clubs. You’d also be losing if someone held TT, let alone a pair of Jacks or Queens for quads.

Conclusion

The above hand example just goes to show how important it is to read the board and understand the strength of your own hand based on the information available to you. Remember that the more experience you have playing poker, the quicker and easier it will be to read the board and assess the relative strength of your hand.

Even experienced poker players make mistakes from time to time. As a beginner to poker you might mis-read the board every now and again – but it’s natural to make mistakes when you’re learning new skills. Just be aware of the texture of the flop at all times and use the information available to you – and use it wisely.

By Tim Ryerson

Tim is from London, England and has been playing poker since the late 1990’s. He is the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ at Pokerology.com and is responsible for all the content on the website.

Remember when you first learned how to play no-limit hold'em? What were the very first examples of strategy you learned?

After learning the rules and order of play, probably one of the first elements of the game you learned had to do with starting hand values. You learned how...

• , , , and were best,
• , , , were pretty good,
• , , were sometimes playable,
• and , , and similar hands were junk.

From there you probably learned about the importance of position, bet sizing and pot odds, and other ideas related to postflop strategy. While you may have had help learning these concepts — from other players, by reading books and articles, or by watching instructional videos or televised poker — you probably picked up a lot of these things just by playing the game, using trial-and-error to appreciate how they work.

Along the way, many players indirectly begin to understand and appreciate differences between flop types. In fact, going back to that first lesson about starting hand values, players begin to realize that how a hand is affected by the flop has a lot to do with it being better or worse to play in the first place.

Hands like pocket aces and ace-king are good preflop, but tend to remain good after the flop, too. Those in-between hands like jack-ten suited can be good to play because of how flops improve their prospects. Meanwhile a junk hand like jack-deuce is unlikely to be helped by most flops, making it a poor starting hand.

The better no-limit hold'em players are able to think beyond how flops help or hurt their own hands. They also recognize how flops may or may not have helped their opponents, and play accordingly. Those who have gained more experience and advanced understanding of the game are able to recognize instinctively what are 'good' or 'bad' flops for everyone involved in the hand, often doing so in part by recognizing how flops fit certain categories of flop types.

Common flop types include:

• 'high' flops containing two or three high cards ( or higher)
• 'low' flops with two or three low cards ( or lower)
• 'wet' flops with coordinated cards providing flush and/or straight draws (or made flushes or straights)
• 'dry' flops with uncoordinated cards providing no draws

'High' and 'low' flops are easy enough for players to recognize. So are 'wet' and 'dry' flops, although they might deserve a quick explanation.

A flop like would be considered 'wet' because of the way the three cards provide both a flush draw (to players holding two clubs in their hands), many different straight draws, and the possibility of a made straight. Any flop with two cards of the same suit and/or two cards of consecutive rank could be considered somewhat 'wet.'

Meanwhile a flop like is 'dry' because it offers very little as far as draws are concerned — nothing but 'backdoor' draws, really, that need both the turn and river to be completed. 'Dry' flops are usually also 'rainbow' flops (with three different suits), ruling out flush draws.

Note how a 'high' or 'low' flop can either be 'wet' or 'dry' depending both on the suits and how close the rankings of the cards are.

Good players are able to draw lines between preflop action and the likelihood of these different types of flops improving players' hands.

A player showing strength preflop by raising from early position or three-betting is more likely to have a big pair or high cards than someone playing passively before the flop by calling others' raises. Thus a 'high' and 'dry' flop like is more apt to fit the preflop raiser/reraiser's range of hands, while a 'low' and 'wet' flop like is likely more favorable to the passive player calling a raise from the blinds.

Being able to make this step — to recognize how preflop actions begin to suggest certain hands and then connect those actions to different flop types — goes a long way toward helping players improve their postflop decision-making.

There's another way of categorizing flops that some find helpful, one having to do with the amount of expected action a flop is likely to encourage. Ed Miller has written about this approach, using the terms 'dynamic' and 'static' to describe the different flop types.

A 'dynamic' flop, explains Miller, is one that doesn't necessarily swing the advantage permanently in any player's direction, often leading to further play on the turn and/or river. Such flops are sometimes referred to as 'action flops,' given how they keep more players interested in continuing to battle for pots.

Meanwhile a 'static' flop immediately swings the advantage to one player, discouraging others from going further with the hand. In the latter case, the player with the better hand on the flop will often look to earn value while those who missed the flop will usually look to minimize losses, thus leading to less postflop action.

Miller spells out this concept in his book The Course, explaining 'that static flops are ones where hand rankings — yours and your opponents' — are unlikely to change much on the turn and river,' while 'dynamic flops are ones where hand rankings are likely to change significantly on the turn or river.'

To give examples of each, 'static' flops like or are ones that tend to ensure one player not only has the best hand on the flop, but that hand will continue to remain best on future streets. Having a king in your hand when the flop comes likely puts you ahead on the flop, and there are relatively few turn cards that will change that.

Meanwhile 'dynamic' flops like or might immediately improve a player's hand, but they also are flops for which many different turn cards can change things dramatically. You aren't necessarily too comfortable when flopping top pair of tens when the board is , given how others with draws or overcards are going to continue to be interested going forward, and have good prospects for improving to hands that will beat yours.

As Miller points out, 'high' and 'dry' flops tend to be more 'static,' although not always. Meanwhile 'low' and 'wet' flops are often more 'dynamic,' but there are many exceptions there, too. The important point is not necessarily to be clever about categorizing flops, but to understand how best to proceed when faced with these different flop types.

Rainbow Holdem Rules

For example, Miller notes how having position postflop is an even greater advantage when the flop is 'dynamic.' If you're out of position and the flop comes , you might not want to continuation bet if you were the preflop raiser, or if you weren't and you're drawing, you might want to play passive initially (check-calling) to avoid getting bet out of the hand. By contrast, 'static' flops are safer, relatively speaking, for continuation bettors or for those looking to steal pots postflop with bluffs.

For more on Miller's 'dynamic' versus 'static' distinction, see his article 'A Quick Way to Think About Flop Texture.'

Figuring out how to connect players' preflop actions to different flops and deduce correctly whether or not flops are favorable to them is a much more complicated lesson to learn than was the earlier one regarding starting hand selection. But it's well worth the effort. Thinking in terms of different flop types or categories can be helpful as an initial step toward becoming more intelligent with postflop play.

Rainbow Hold On

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