What You Don't Get About Board Texture
You likely understand that a K♣️7❤️2♠️ flop is different than Q❤️T♠️7❤️.
You may view the first as “a better board to bluff.”
You might even use different bet sizes based on the board texture.
But you also learn rough heuristics to apply in-game, whether from books, by studying solvers, or on your own.
And they are failing you.
Today, we’re going to talk about why you’re screwing up and how you can apply a framework to minimize those mistakes.
Heuristics
Heuristics are cognitive strategies or rules of thumb that simplify problem-solving by allowing for quick judgments based on limited information.
In simpler terms, they are shortcuts our brain takes to help us make decisions quickly.
Whether you actively learn and define heuristics to base your play on or not, your brain is creating them for you.
If you face a pot-sized bet on a K♠️T♠️4❤️ flop, you know that you’re not folding A♠️J♠️.
You’re capable of doing the math to figure out your odds of making a straight or a flush, looking at the pot odds, and perhaps even playing out future street potential outcomes and approximating your expected value based on them.
But you don’t need to do all of that to decide you won’t be folding. You know it without needing to think at all.
This is a heuristic. And your brain has created a whole host of them!
Despite the fact that some of them are failing you, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s a key part of the learning process.
So, What’s the Problem?
Those of you reading this aren’t all on the exact same level. Some of you will make fewer of these types of mistakes than others. I’ve never played against someone who didn’t make some of them, though.
Let’s take a look at constructing a flop check-raise range.
We’re playing $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em. Our opponent raised from the button to $25, and we called in the big blind.
Flop: K♣️ T❤️ 6♣️
We check, and our opponent bets $25.
I’m going to ask you two questions, and I want you to answer them quickly:
What types of hands do you want to raise for value?
What types of hands do you want to raise as a bluff?
Have you got your answers?
I asked you to answer quickly because that’s what you have to do while you’re playing. Yes, you can take a minute to make a decision, but you’re also not casually reading an article at the time. You have countless other things to focus on while you’re trying to make that decision.
So. You probably came up with something that looks like:
Value:
Sets
Two Pair
Bluffs:
Flush Draws
Open Enders
Gutshots
Perhaps you got more specific than that, or there are other hands on your list. That’s okay! It’s actually good, but I wanted to keep my list simple for teaching purposes.
Maybe your heuristics lead you to raise more often when your draw has less showdown value. Perhaps you like to raise gutshots but not open-enders.
We’re, of course, not going to raise all of our value hands or all of our bluffs.
Whatever the case may be, you’ve got a group of candidates for a value range and a bluff range, and you’ll raise them at some frequency.
Do you know what percentage of your flush draws you’ll raise? Do you know the frequency at which you’ll raise a gutshot?
Probably not. I know I don’t.
Let’s move on to another hand example and then tie them together.
Hand Number Two
Exact same spot.
We’re playing $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em once again.
Our opponent raised from the button to $25, and we called in the big blind.
Flop: A❤️ 6♣️ 4♦️
We check, and our opponent bets $25.
Quickly:
What types of hands do you want to raise for value?
What types of hands do you want to raise as a bluff?
Ready to move on?
On this flop, you’ll have noted some key differences:
The flop is Ace High
There’s no flush draw
There are fewer straight draws
For some of you, the candidates might look like:
Value:
Sets
Two Pair
Bluffs:
Open Enders
Gutshots
Again, not everyone’s list will look like this. The solver will add a lot of other hands at a low frequency, both to this board and the one above. That’s challenging to do in practice for all but the strong professional player.
And once again, you won’t be raising all of your raising candidates.
Some players might look at the Ace high board and not want to bluff against the pre-flop raiser. Others might like to trap with A6 and A4 but raise their sets.
But if I ask you at what frequency you’d raise your gutshots, would you know the answer? Or would you simply call sometimes and raise sometimes?
Here’s the Problem
We know these boards are different.
Yet many of you will have roughly the same heuristics in your mind:
“Raising candidates are strong made hands and draws.”
Let’s look at just how unbalanced you’re at risk of being.
On K♣️ T❤️ 6♣️, your range roughly contains:
Made Hands (4%)
Sets: 1%
Two Pair: 3%
Draws (22%)
Flush draw: 6%
Open Ender: 2%
Gutshot: 14%
Whereas on A❤️ 6♣️ 4♦️, your range looks like:
Made Hands (5.5%)
Sets: 1.5%
Two Pair: 4%
Draws (6%)
Flush draw: 0%
Open Ender: 2%
Gutshot: 4%
On the second board, we have about a 1:1 ratio of potential bluffs to potential value raises.
On the first, we have a 5.5:1 ratio!
Why are the numbers that drastically different?
Because a lot of the straight draws on A❤️ 6♣️ 4♦️ get folded preflop when they’re offsuit, and there are far more combos of offsuit hands than suited.
Are you adjusting your frequencies appropriately? Are you, for example, raising draws five times less often on the first board than on the second?
Many of you will c-bet bluff much less often on K♣️ T❤️ 6♣️ than on A❤️ 6♣️ 4♦️, but will you make sure to check-raise bluff much, much less too?
Will you make sure to dig deep on the A❤️ 6♣️ 4♦️ flop with check-raises?
Many of you reading might not even dare check-raise bluff this dry ace high flop against the preflop raiser, thinking you “can’t rep it.”
You absolutely can! You have more 2pair+ on A64 than on KT6!
That Wasn’t the Point
Now you have an idea about how you might check-raise differently than you have been on these two boards, but that example is there simply to show you how your shortcuts can fail you.
Usually, they fail you in situations where you are deciding whether or not to put in a bet or call.
You’re generally supposed to be a bit looser on draw-heavy boards, but almost all players (accidentally) take it too far.
They call a turn c-bet with Top Pair, Second Pair, and all the obvious draws.
On one board that’s 40% of their range.
On another board, it’s 65%.
On Q♣️6❤️2♠️, you should call a small c-bet with most of your Ace and King highs with no draw.
On A♣️T❤️6♣️, you should fold all of your King highs with no draw, not to mention your Queen high.
On Q♣️6❤️2♠️ K♦️, you should call a big turn c-bet with all of your 2nd pair hands.
On A♣️T❤️6♣️2❤️, you should fold 80% of your 2nd pair hands.
Why?
Well, for a lot of reasons – I’m picking boards that are very strong examples – but it has to do with two things:
The makeup of your range
How many hands you’d rather call
Picking Your Team
Think of it like you’re drafting a kickball team on the school playground, where only half of the kids make it on a team.
Whether King High Kevin makes a cut depends on who else is there.
Kevin might barely not get picked on a normal day, but when Flush Draw Fran is home sick, you’re happy to have him.
On A♣️ T❤️ 6♣️, you’d rather call 7♣️5♣️ than K♦️9❤️.
On Q♣️ 6❤️ 2♠️, you don’t have those flush draws, so your other hands move up.
When you check call A♣️ T❤️ 6♣️, your turn range on the 2❤️ contains a lot of Top Pair Toms!
When you check call 7♣️6❤️2♠️, and the J❤️ turn peels off, you’ve got about 1/3rd as many.
These are all examples to illustrate the same point, which I want to make sure lands with you:
You need to adjust your approach based on the board.
A Framework
It’s not so simple to rewire your brain and unlearn the heuristics you have picked up. It also wouldn’t be a great idea to try to remove heuristics altogether, even if you could.
So, if you’re going to work with those heuristics that tell you at a moment’s notice what a hand is worth, you need to be able to catch yourself and prevent the overvaluing and undervaluing I’ve been talking about.
The way I started doing this is by running through a checklist in my mind before making a decision.
Is the board draw-heavy?
Is my range strong?
If very true: Adjust my perception of what hands are worth downward.
If very false: Adjust my perception upward.
If in the middle: I already know what to do.
Eventually, over time, I’ve needed to do this less and less, because my brain has been learning to shortcut this process, too.
Brains are cool!
Takeaways
Every board is different.
On boards with few potential draws and pairs for your pre-flop range, you have to dig deeper (in theory and in practice).
On boards with a lot of draws, you have to be tighter than you think (in theory and in practice).
Most importantly, if your opponents haven’t yet subscribed to this newsletter, you now know where they’ll be unbalanced!
