Best Poker Strategies for the Flop and River Betting Rounds

If you are a beginner in poker, you will do well to start playing with the popular variants like Texas Hold’em or Omaha. These are relatively easy to understand, and once you get well-versed with these poker game variants and related poker tricks, you can explore other poker variants. For both these games, you aim to form the best possible five-card hand combination over the various betting rounds (stages) involved.

You begin with the pre-flop stage, and move to the flop stage, followed by the turn and finally the river stage before you arrive at the showdown. At each of these stages, you are supposed to participate in betting by either deciding to bet, call, raise, or fold, depending on the kind of poker hand combination that you can build with the hole cards and community cards you receive.

While two-hole cards (face down) are dealt at the pre-flop stage in Texas Hold’em, four-hole cards are dealt in case of Omaha poker. In this article, we shall discuss the poker strategy required for the flop stage and the river stage.

Strategy at Flop Stage

You would hear a lot about flop in poker or flop poker meaning, especially when you are playing Texas Hold’em or Omaha poker. This is the second betting round that follows the pre-flop stage. In addition to the hole cards received by you in the earlier stage, you get three community cards (face up in the middle of the table) at the flop stage.

The key here is to think ahead as there are two more stages (turn and the river) before the showdown. Evaluate if your poker hand combination possibility has improved after receiving the community cards or has it deteriorated. If your hand has gone very bad, do not hesitate to fold and save your chips for later. However, if you feel the odds of having a strong hand based on the community cards of other players is high, you can stay in the game with a call or raise.

You will get better at making decisions at the flop stage as you learn about calculating the odds for your hand combination and evaluating the position from which you are playing. For example, if all tight players have folded and the only couple of aggressive players are left in the game, you may consider playing one more betting round and see if your cards improve.

Strategy at River Stage

When it comes to river poker, you would observe that it is the last stage before you go to showdown. Here, every player gets dealt with the last community card giving them a clear picture of the final hand combination. There is no speculation left at this stage. All you must do is a bet based on the players left and the best card combination you can make from all your hole cards and community cards.

If you have a terrible hand and few players are remaining to bet after your turn, you can fold at this stage without risking putting in more money. However, if you have a strong hand, do not hesitate to bet further as you will then be just one step away from winning the pot. Whatever it is, make a clear decision and move ahead with confidence. If you are the last one to bet, it will be much easier for you to decide.

And if you are the first one to bet, you may want to bet further with confidence provided you have a strong hand, and you believe the other players left are just playing aggressively, and can easily fold on seeing your aggressive move.

As seen above, you need to be wary about the stage you are at while deciding your bet. The strategy to be used at the flop stage varies as compared to the river!