As already mentioned in part 1 of this series, ‘Semi-bluffing out of position’, playing as first to act is an ugly situation to put yourself in. Your best approach is (normally) to double-barrel all your strong draws – that is, you should bet on the turn after you’ve bet the flop, even if you miss. Obviously there are exceptions, such as if the board texture has turned nasty. To take an example, let’s say you check-raised a TAG with 6c-7c on an Ac-5d-4s flop. The turn brings a second Ace, and that should be enough to stop you from firing again. Even if they haven’t got the Ace, they’ll believe you’ve got it even less now.
There are also some players you don’t want to double-barrel, such as fish who quite obviously have top pair and are not folding. Maybe you check-raised Ah-5h on a Kh-7h-2s flop and the turn is a low blank. Just check and they will often give you a free card and are unlikely to fold their top pair. Check out the following clip that shows Daniel Negreanu’s approach to double-barrelling on a semi-bluff.
Out of position
When you do hit your draw on the turn you should generally bet, especially if you complete a straight draw as your hand will be far more camouflaged than a gaudy flush. Say you’ve check-raised a double belly-buster with J-T on an 8-A-Q flop against a tight player and hit your gin Nine. Check and trap? No. Just bet again so the pot is big enough that you can move all-in on the river. When boards get coordinated the likelihood of your opponent holding a strong hand like two pair goes up. Against some players that are really out of line and do random stuff like floating check-raises, you can sometimes check the turn to feign weakness but generally this will lead to smaller pots than just slamming more bets in. Remember, you want to get money into the middle when you’re winning! That said, against tough, solid opponents with good hand-reading skills you must check the turn when you hit at least some of the time so they don’t get a long-term read on you.
In position
When you are in position and hold the betting lead from the flop you should utilise scare cards where possible, but be happy to take free cards particularly if your draw is a weak one. If you opened 6h-8h from the cutoff and your opponent check-calls a 7-9-J flop only to see a Queen on the turn then you may need to slow down. This kind of card is terrible for you to double-barrel as it fits your opponent’s flop calling range perfectly and means you will have to triple-barrel bluff the river frequently. If the turn was an Ace or King then, sure, fire again!