I played a gazillion hands of limit poker before I ever played a no limit tournament or NL cash game. It was great training and highly profitable, and I still play a lot of limit cash, which helps shield me from long dry spells and bankroll decay when the MTTs are peeing on my leg. A lot of the skills you develop on the road to becoming a winning limit player are incredibly useful for no limit MTTs (discipline, recognizing value bet situations, and hand selection leap to mind), but certain things that become ingrained in limit cash must be “unlearned” to some extent when you switch gears to MTTs. One of the biggest of these concepts is the “free card.”

The “Free Card” Dilemma

Good limit players are usually the aggressors in the hands, and they make a lot of their money by pounding weak players who are often on a draw or calling off chips with 2nd pair and worse. It is rarely correct to take your foot off the pedal in limit when you have an overpair or top pair, especially if you are up against a single loose opponent. I play a lot of limit on a site that rhymes with “snow dog,” and I can tell you that against most of these nutters, I will keep betting even compact, scary boards heads up, over and over. For instance, against most players, I will bet AsKs on the turn with a board as “scary” as Kc 10c 8s 7c. That bet is +EV on this site (and in many — but by no means all — limit games) because you will get called by all kinds of hands that you are ahead of, and you do not want to give a free card to a singleton club or other draws. (Another reason to bet here is that in the game I play, most players ridiculously overplay their draws, so a hand like Ac 9c would check raise and possibly cap the flop, believe it or not).

But that’s fairly game-specific. Generically, it’s an axiom of limit poker that you never give a “free card” to a likely drawing hand. A classic example is where you raise a limper with AA, and the flop comes something like 8h Jh Kc. He check-calls the flop. The turn is the 4c. It would be a major error to check the turn here. You simply cannot give a free card away when the board screams “drawing hand.” But what if the flop comes 2c 7d Jh, and the turn is (say) 3s? Is it a mistake to check? Given that so many limit players will check-call with something like A7 or even 55, I would say betting is usually correct – not because you might give a free card to a draw but because you are missing good value if you check.

When we look at the free card issue in no limit tournaments, however, things change. Let’s look at how AA plays on the turn in various scenarios. Assume in each case that your opponent is an average player – neither overly conservative nor very tricky. In each case, you are in middle position and raise preflop, and your opponent calls from the big blind. You are heads up.

(1) The flop comes 7h 10h Qc. He checks, you bet 2/3 of the pot, and he calls. The turn is the 5c. Should you bet? Absolutely. He could easily have any number of drawing hands or second best hands, and you need to protect your hand and extract value. Bet whatever amount you think he will call.

(2) The flop comes 2c 7d Js. He checks, you bet 2/3 of the pot, and he calls. The turn is the 3h. Should you bet? The answer depends a lot on feel and in particular on any information you have on the player. Would he check-call with 2nd pair, a medium pocket pair like 88, or a jack? How quickly did he check and call, and does that indicate anything based on what you know of this player? If you have zero or neutral information (or info that indicates strength), I would seriously consider a check in this spot. The arguments for checking include: (a) the board does not support many drawing hands, so the free card you give is less likely to help your opponent; and (b) this being a classic “way ahead or way behind” situation, you are either saving yourself money if he has a set or making yourself money if another rag hits and he decides to bluff (if he has nothing), check-call, or bet his one pair “for value” on the river. If he has (say) KJ, yes it is possible that you could get him to check-call the turn and river, but many players would fold the turn if you bet again; those same players will almost always bet or pay off the river if you check the turn.

All of this assumes a rather passive opponent – many opponents will of course try to find out where they stand on the flop. But many players will play top pair (or less) in this passive manner, so checking the turn may get you paid on the river, and will of course save you money when he has the set. Another way of looking at it is that you can use your turn bet money to call the river – assuming you would have folded on the turn to a check-raise, you could get a lot more value for the same money (you pay the same or a similar amount and might actually win the hand!). The nice thing about checking the turn is that your opponent will “worry” that you have nothing (AK, etc.) and might make a smallish bet on the river (costing you even less than your hypothetical turn bet). Note that if you are the big blind player, you have a set in this spot and your opponent bets the turn, you might want to consider calling again and then leading out on the river, especially against a strong player who can fold a big, one pair hand to a turn check-raise.

An even easier case is where the turn pairs the top card of the flop. Checking the turn there is fairly standard, especially on a broken board like 2-7-J rainbow. The tough part in those scenarios is whether to call a hefty river bet – you should seriously consider folding if the flop was very broken, as in my example, though you should of course call if you think he would bet two pair on the river.

The Turn Has Less Noise

The tougher cases are where the board is more ambiguous. If you decide to bet the turn on a board that suggests some draws and where the turn card did not help those draws (change the flop to Jh 7h 2c and again assume a 3d hits the turn) and you get raised, you need to seriously consider folding your AA or other big pair (see my last article about “inverted risk”). Note that while some players check-raise draws and check-raise top pair into strength, they usually don’t do it on the turn. When your opponent check-raises the turn on a board like this, you are usually drawing “anorectic.” That’s not good.

This bears repeating: the percentage of times that a check-raise on the flop means your overpair (or TP/TK) is beat is very small in comparison to the percentage of times that a check-raise on the turn means you are beat. Flop raises and check-raises can mean all kinds of things. The message that is being conveyed can be all noise (bluff, semi-bluff, bong hit, etc.). But the messages come across much more clearly on the turn. So while I have advocated checking the turn in some cases, if you do bet the turn, you must be prepared to release the hand to a check-raise, even in many cases where the flop suggested a draw. Yes, sometimes you will fold the best hand, but in the absence of information to suggest that your opponent has the heart to make a big play (example: check-raise turn with something like Kh10h on board of Qh 9s 7h 10c), you can assume you will usually be behind, and chasing a Nicole Ritchie/Mary-Kate-before-treatment, rail thin draw.

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