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What are we talking about here? The flop in poker is the second stage of betting where three common cards are on the board. This is one of the most important streets, which can change the balance of power at the table.
What types of flops are there? There are two types of flops: dry (uncoordinated) and wet (coordinated). The first is a more safe one, where the structure of the board won’t change dramatically on the following streets. The second is dangerous, as everything can change pretty much in an instant.
Briefly about the Flop in Poker
The flop is the second stage of the game in Texas Hold’em (one of the variations of poker). When the flop stage begins, three common cards are opened on the board. Those cards can be used by players in conjunction with the hole cards they have in hand to get the best combination of five cards.
On the preflop, players are given a pair of cards in their hands, after which they begin the first round of betting. Next comes the flop, that is, the opening of three common cards on the table. The flop begins the postflop stage of the game.
The flop, turn and river in poker are common cards, opened in order at different stages of the game. The flop contains three cards, the turn, like the river, consists of one card. Those cards players use with their hole cards to make a hand.
Flop Structure in Poker
The flop is three cards that are opened simultaneously after the first betting round (Preflop) that are common to all players, meaning everyone may use those to make hands.
The flop structure can be represented by the following elements:
- Common cards. Three cards on the board that every player can use equally.
- Position. The dealer position (or the Button) is the last player to act during the flop stage. The first one to act is the player on the left to the Button.
- Making hands. Players make a hand from 5 cards. On the flop you have a total of 5 cards available, so everyone has a complete hand.
- Combinations. At this stage, the players have new prospects for making combinations. They have the opportunity to combine the cards lying on the table with those they have in order to make combinations such as three of a kind, a pair (or two pairs), a flush (cards of the same suit), a straight (five consecutive cards), a full house (a pair + three cards of the same value) and others.
The structure of the flop is an important part of the game, since based on the cards available at this stage, players decide how to proceed, assess how strong the potential combinations are, and make a choice: to fold or to keep on going.
Types of Flops
The flop in poker is the main stage of the hand, since it is associated with making key decisions that can affect the outcome of the game.
There are two types of flops:
- Dry or disconnected. This type of board is considered as the safe one, since the following streets don’t often change the texture significantly. Those are flops with no suited cards and no connected cards like 76. This minimizes the chances of opponents getting a strong combination. So, on a board of 2-7-K rainbow, it is almost impossible to get a flush or a straight by the river.
- Wet or coordinated. Those boards are quite dangerous since a lot of turn cards can significantly change the strength of hands. Such a flop contains cards of the same suit or sequential combinations. If we take a wet board like J87s, the strongest hand here is JJ, but on many turn cards it would change.
Coordinated flops may be split in different categories:
- High-card boards, like A98. You should be very careful with second or third pairs on such a board, since you can already be far behind against a pair of Aces, and hands like KT even have a lot of equity against let’s say Q8. However, players often resort to bluffing on such boards.
How to Play the Flop
Remember that the flop is a street where you have very little information about the strength of other players’ hands. This means that when making a decision on the flop, you need to consider how your opponents acted preflop, evaluate the cards on the flop, the size of the pot, and the position.
If you are a preflop caller, you can get a lot of useful information from your opponent’s actions on the flop. Try to estimate the size of his bet, think about semi-bluffs and value.
Before making any decision, you need to do poker math.
Outs
These are cards that help improve your hand. They can be clean or tainted, and the latter improve not only your hand, but also your opponent’s hand. Therefore, you only need to determine the number of clean outs.
Let’s say you have 9h7h on the 6s8sJd board. This means that you have an open-ended straight draw. Count the outs – four fives and four tens, that is, you have eight outs to improve your hand.
However, four and ten of spades can also strengthen your opponent’s hand, so you have six clean outs on the straight.
Probabilities
Seeing the cards on the board and in your hand, you can calculate the probability of making any combination.
Here’s a rule of thumb you can use. To estimate the chances of making a hand by the river, just multiply the number of outs on the flop by four. That’s when you have two more cards to go. If you are on the turn with only one runout left, then multiply the number of outs by two.
For example, there is a straight draw on the flop and you have six clean outs to make a straight. To estimate the probability of the required card appearing on the turn or river, multiply 6 by 4. You get 24%, that is, the chances are approximately 1: 3 (or 3: 1, in the case of calculating the odds against).
Pot odds
Let’s say the preflop aggressor bets the flop and you’re not sure whether to call. You can determine whether a call is profitable using pot odds.
We’ve established before that the chance of winning is 1:3, meaning that in this situation you’ll make a straight 1 out of 4 times. Imagine that your opponent bets $40 into a pot of $160. This creates a total pot of $200. This means that you must put $40 into the pot to have a chance of winning $200. So we calculate the pot odds, which are 40:200 or 1:5.
Now we need to compare your chances of winning to the pot odds. The previous calculations showed us that the chance of winning is 1:3. This is higher than 1:5 (the pot odds). When the probability of winning exceeds the pot odds, you should call, since such situations are profitable for you in the long run.
Analyzing Opponents’ Cards on the Flop
It’s not easy to figure out what your opponents have on the flop. However, you can get some clues by watching what players do, how they behave, and how much they bet. Here are some approaches that would allow you to analyze opponents’ hands on the flop:
- Common cards. Look at the common cards on the flop and try to figure out what possible combinations your opponents might have. For example, if the board is suited or connected, you can assume that your opponent will have a flush or a straight.
- Bets and raises. Look at the players’ bets and raises on the flop. If they bet large amounts or make raises, this may indicate a strong hand. If the bet size is small or players check, this often indicates weakness.
- Reactions and facial expressions. Pay attention to players’ reaction to the board the first time they see it, watch their facial expressions. Sometimes players can subconsciously give away their hand through facial expressions, emotions, gestures. However, you need to be careful here, because opponents can deliberately give deceptive signals, bluff.
Do not forget that such an assessment of the opponents’ cards on the flop is only an assumption and cannot be considered an irrefutable truth. The more information you can collect during the game, the more accurately you can assess the hands and develop your own playing strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Flop in Poker
What is “draw” on the flop?
It is at the flop stage that you will often get unmade hands, such as a straight draw or flush draw, or gutshots. A draw hand means an unfinished hand, that is, you need at least one card to make a hand. Usually, this concept is used in relation to unfinished straights and flushes.
Such a hand is quite strong, although it looks weak. It often happens that by the river, a draw hand is more profitable than combinations that were stronger on the flop, for example, a middle pair.
What does a continuation bet on the flop mean?
In poker, when discussing a flop strategy people often mention continuation bets. It is a bet that the preflop aggressor makes on the flop. So he continues his aggression on the flop. It does not matter whether he improved his hand on the flop or not. The size of the continuation bet is determined by the playing style of the participants and the structure of the board.
So, now you know that the flop in poker is the second stage of Texas Hold’em (one of the types of poker). The flop contains three common cards. This is one of the main streets, capable of radically changing the balance of power at the table.
Winning the flop means forcing opponents to fold. Beginners often are quite aggressive on flops with hands that were good preflop, but not necessarily good on different flops, like pocket pairs. Also, recreational players may sometimes overbet (bet more, than there is in the pot) with really strong hands like quads, boats or two pairs.
