Holdem: The communal card nature of the game

Hold’em is a communal card game and as a result, you must be weary of the fact that a card that helped you may have also helped another player. A classic example is as follows: you have 8-7 of diamonds and the flop is 5s-6s-Kc. If the turn is a 9s, you must keep in mind that while that card gave you a straight, it may also have given another player a flush, in which case, you cannot win the hand.

As you play more and more hold’em, you will learn to factor this into your decisions. A more interesting example comes up in situations where you think you have a chance of winning at first glance, but you have less outs that you think. Let’s say you have 5d-6d and the board on the turn is 7c-8h-Qh-10c. If you look closely, you may be drawing dead (an opponent has J-9). Furthermore, a nine may not help you as any opponent with a jack in the hole would have you beat. This means that only a 4 will help you and since there are two possible flush draws, you may be down to only a 4d or 4d. This is simply the communal nature of hold’em that you must become familiar with in order to succeed.