Here we are at Thanksgiving. It has been another fine year of poker, despite the Internet hassles and promise of more to come. Live games have been terrific, and poker in Las Vegas has been thriving.

More importantly, I have a wonderful wife, and great friends who have been both helpful and encouraging during the year, and especially in support of the work I have been putting into the book.

So I thank them, and I thank you for coming here and reading my material, and for reading my Card Player columns. To those of you who have joined my forum, thank you. And to those who have actively participated, posting questions, offering opinions, and engaging in the give and take, extra thanks as well.

Very special thanks to the folks at Zelfanet who support and maintain this website, so we can all enjoy it.

I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving, and a wonderful holiday season.

New topic:

Starting in the next issue of Card Player, I am doing a series on how to play the turn when out of position. This is a difficult topic, because the variables are great, but I hope my thoughts on general continuation will help people think about this subject more clearly. I expect it will run five parts, perhaps six.

Let’s look at a hand I played a few weeks ago. An aggressive middle position player raised and I called in the big blind with 9c 8c after the small blind also called. The flop was Kc 7h 5s, so I had a gut shot and backdoor flush draw. We both checked to the raiser, who bet. SB folded.

I was roughly an 11:1 dog to hit a six, and only getting 7:1. A backdoor flush is worth one extra out, but this one was not the nuts so it cound not even be a full out. Could I expect four more small bets or more if I hit?

I think so. If he had anything, I ought to win one big bet on the turn and one on the river at least. Plus, because he was an aggressive player, he might not have much, so I could bluff at the turn if the Jc or 10c hits, giving me extra straight outs as well as flush outs. (And yes, I would do this with a real hand like K-Q as well).

The turn card was my miracle six (a result of good living, no doubt). Now what should I have done? In the middle limit games I have been playing, a bet here frequently is a combination small value/semi-bluff, made by a player with, say, 8-7 who now has a pair and a straight draw, and hopes the original raiser has very little. Aggressive players (like me) when they have made hands almost always punish this delicate try with a raise.

I thought that a bet by me would look to the raiser like just this sort of play, as most players who make a big hand like mine wait to check-raise. Plus, if he had a hand like J-J, he might check the turn and I wanted to pressure him to call in case I was making a play.

So I bet and he raised. The choice was close, but I decided to reraise right then. Luckily his hand was good enough to pay me off all the way, so I got great value for my plays.

The point here is that whether or not to bet the turn with a made hand is not automatic. Many players are in love with the check-raise, because it is a cool play. Sometimes, though, just the boring play of betting your hand makes the most money.