We could look at the three card flop in a very complicated way and look at each card individually versus the others. But the nice thing about poker is that only so many different kinds of flops can come up; in other words we can simplify the boards into certain textures. We should always be looking for simple ways to process information efficiently, and compartmentalizing textures can help.
The texture of a flop is simply what the flop looks like. Certain textures appear more comfortable and allow for more peeling, and other textures are scary and make people fold more. Let’s look at some basic flop textures, and talk about how people tend to approach them:
0 Broadway Card: (8
• ♠6♣2h or 9♦8♣5♦). These boards have no
broadway cards (T/J/Q/K/A) on them. These boards tend to allow lots of comfortability for single pairs, and thus peeling frequencies increase. Non-broadway card boards do not look like they hit the preflop raiser (as players heavily assign hands like AK and KQ to open raising ranges). These boards also tend to get attacked more often as well. Players love to “bluff the raiser off their AK” and raise more liberally on these types of boards. While a good player wouldn’t choose this board type to attack a CB as often, bad players love them.
1 Broadway Card: (A
• ♠9♥7♥ or J♣6♦5♠). These boards have a
single broadway card on them. These boards tend to look like they hit the open raiser’s range. There is peeling happening on this kind of flop, but less than the 0 broadway card board. Good players tend to attack these boards more liberally, especially on A or Q high flops, and bad players will attack them occasionally.
2 Broadway Card: (K
• ♠J♣4♦ or A♦T♦8♣). These boards have two
different broadway cards on them (so ATT is a two broadway card board, as well as a paired board). Having two broadway cards on the flop makes it look like the preflop raiser really smashed the board. These boards are not peeled very often, as players have no real interest in trying to get 66 to showdown on an AQ3 board. Bluffing also tends to go down on these textures due to players assuming, and usually correctly, that players are less willing to fold pairs in the broadway range.
3 Broadway Card: (A
• ♦Q♠J♣ or K♥Q♦T♥). These are very dangerous
boards. They look like they hit very strongly for the preflop raiser, making him some sort of two pair, set, or even straight. Due to the perceived strength of hand for the preflop raiser, these boards rarely get peeled on. Players tend to respect these boards, and also rarely bluff them.
Monotone: (A
• ♥J♥6♥ or 9♣3♣8♣). These flops have possible flushes made already. They are super wet and also very dangerous. Players tend to play very variably on them as well. Some will shutdown everything but flushes and sets, and others will peel any flush draw or decent pair. The tighter the player facing the CB, the less hands they will usually continue with on these boards. Most players will not choose these boards to attack very liberally, but due to the dangerous nature of them, they can be perfect to attack due to the tight continuance range generally associated with them.
Paired: (J
• ♦J♣8♣ or 6♦2♠2♥). On paired boards people peel more because they don’t believe the original raiser hit it often due to card removal. Most players will not bluff raise this board, but will peel liberally. So if we are going to bluff CB on paired boards, we usually need to be prepared to fire multiple barrels.
Bingo: (J
• ♠J♥J♣ or 3♦3♣3♥). These flops are extremely rare, and tend to create odd action. Players don’t tend to attack these boards often, but many call more liberally with most pairs and lots of ace high type hands. While board types can be easily classified with any of the above, they can be classified even more simply as “dry” or “wet.” A monotone board will always be a wet board, but a single broadway card flop can be either dry or wet. Simplifying board textures gives us the ability to create lines quicker and categorize our hand strength accordingly.
Dry: (A
• ♠7♦2♣ or 9♦5♥2♠). These boards have ranks that are usually very spread out with minimal draws on them. A “dry” flop is just a descriptor of one of the other flop types. Dry flops with a single broadway card are usually perfect for continuation betting. They look like they hit the original raiser’s range and the dryness means there are fewer drawing hands that could continue facing a bet.
Wet: (8
• ♦7♦4♣ or A♠J♥9♠). These boards are usually very coordinated and have multiple draws on them. A “wet” flop is just a a descriptor of one of the other flop types. Certain wet boards are very good for a
continuation bet, while others can be terrible. A KhQs8h board can be a good CB, while a 7s6s5h can be a bad spot to continuation bet with air. Everything is relative and revolves more around our opponent’s range than our hand, but it is still important to classify flops correctly.