By the time you reach the turn in a Limit Hold’em cash game, most of the hand has been defined.

One thing that can increase your profits is continued aggression when you’ve been aggressive on prior streets. A common mistake that many intermediate players make is understanding when and when not to continue betting and/or raising. Players will either bet when they shouldn’t, or check when they should bet. They fail to recognise the conditions that need to exist in order to continue being aggressive, and either blindly continue firing away at the pot or lose value out of fear of what their opponent might have.

Know your opponent

There’s a reason a saying like ‘don’t bluff a calling station’ exists. The only value there is of continuing to be aggressive against someone who can’t fold is to their bottom line, not yours.

This is not to say that there are not times where betting against a calling station is incorrect. If you have a hand like middle pair and you believe your opponent is on a flush or straight draw, then a bet would be correct.

Your bet needs to make sense. This is a common theme in many Limit Hold’em hands, but that’s only because it is a common mistake that people make. They make bets without thinking about whether or not their bet is logical. If you are going to be aggressive on the turn, it needs to be a continuation of behavior you exhibited on previous streets – or at least have some logical reason for the bet now being made.

If you start betting out of the blue and it doesn’t make sense, good players are going to figure it out and you’ll lose some bets.

Hand example

In the following hand example, we are on the button with A♠ K♠, and we raise it to $20 after it’s folded round to us. Both blinds call.

The flop comes 8♣ 3♦ 2♥, and we all check.

The turn is 2♠. Both the other players check, and we fire out a $20 bet. The small blind smells a rat, and raises to $40. We fold.

As we explain at the end of the video, the problem here is that our bet here didn’t make sense. When you make a bet, always consider what you’re saying.