What the hell is a flop texture? Well, umm, it’s the texture of the flop. Ok the flop texture is basically a way to describe the general “feel” of the flop. What I mean by that is which flops are likely to have hit which hands.

As you probably know by now, the easiest way for me to explain these things is by example. Let’s say you’re playing a six max no limit game online and a player raises preflop from UTG (Under the Gun – the person seated directly to the left of the big blind). You find pocket 8’s and decide to call the raise. Everybody else folds so it’s just the UTG raiser and yourself to the flop.

The flop comes TJQ and that person now makes a decent-sized bet of ¾ the pot. Would you be likely to call this bet? No, of course not. The flop texture sucks for you to call. First of all, there are three cards higher than your pair. Second, the guy raised preflop from early position which means there’s a good chance he raised with big face cards. His whole range is beating you because the flop texture connects so perfectly with his raising range.

Another fun example is the lovely feeling you get when you raise black aces preflop, get three callers, and see a flop of 9TJ all hearts. The reason you get that lovely feeling in your gut is because the flop texture just screwed your hand. First of all, you don’t have any hearts but the flop texture is all hearts – one of your three opponents probably has at least one heart. Second, the flop connects with all sorts of hands opponents like to see flops with. If they called with KQ, 78, 99, TT, JJ, or two hearts they already have you beat. If they called with JQ, KJ, TQ they still have a lot of outs, especially if one of those is a heart. That’s already a lot of hands to worry about thanks to the flop texture. If the flop had instead come 24J rainbow, you’d have a lot fewer likely hands to worry about.

And that’s flop texture in a nutshell. Flop texture is so important because it totally changes the value of your poker hand. Keep the flop texture in mind next time you get those pocket Kings and someone puts up some resistance.

Next time you’re playing poker, pay attention to the game even when you’re not in a hand. Look at the preflop raisers, guesstimate their hand ranges, and see how the flop texture fits with that range. Sometimes you’ll get to see showdowns and sometimes you’ll just see folds but that’s ok because folds tell a lot about people’s hands too. If you always practice this, you’ll gain a huge edge over the people who only pay attention when it’s their turn to play.

Good luck at the tables,
-SmackinYaUp