Poker Flop Analysis: Evaluating Your Advantage

Postflop is where things get serious. The bigger the pot, the higher the stakes.

- Phil Ivey

In the previous chapter, we covered how to approach the early stages of a hand with confidence and precision by mastering preflop charts, executing 3-bets and 4-bets, and defending your blinds effectively.

Now, it’s time to move on to the next stage: the flop. This is where the game takes shape, as the flop often determines your next move based on how it connects with your hand and your opponent’s range.

Ready to discover the impact of the flop on game strategy? Let’s dive in!

In poker, the flop refers to the first three community cards dealt face up on the table, and it plays a critical role in determining hand strength and strategy.

For reading the flop in poker, we’ve got to determine which range has the advantage. A range has two types of advantage:

• Equity advantage: when that range wins more often than its competitor.
• Nut advantage: when a range has more combinations of top-tier hands, like 2p+.

While range and nut advantage usually coincide, sometimes they don’t. For example, let’s use the following simplified GTO based ranges. One for a 6max UTG open-raise, and one for a BB defening that open.

On a flop like

, UTG has both an equity and nut advantage. UTG has 67.6% equity. UTG also has six combos of sets, AA and KK, while BB only has three combos in 22. BB also has fewer two-pair combos, and none of them are top-two, AK.

What about a flop like

UTG still has an equity advantage of 61% to 39%, but BB has way more nutted hands. BB has 1 combo of quads, 4 full houses, and 10 three-of-a-kinds. UTG just has two combos of trips as their best hand.

There, BB has a nut advantage while UTG has an equity advantage. Your flop visualization software has equity graphs, use them for a quick understanding of the types of flops that help the PFR or the pre-flop defender.

So what will you do on the flop with advantage and without? What if you have one and not the other?

It’s important on the flop to know if it’s a board you want to be betting quite often for a small size, or a board you want to be betting infrequently for a big size. The difference between those two will drastically change your strategies.

- Doug Polk

In short, play cautiously when your opponent is ahead and blast away for value and bluffs when the advantage is yours. When in position, you’ll likely want to know what to CBet.

Bet often when you have an equity advantage. If you have a nut and equity advantage, you can bet often, and for a large size. Without advantage, check back weak hands and bet strong hands for a large size.

When out-of-position, many players check to the PFR since they’re usually ahead on most flops. Check-raise more when the flop helps you and get out of the way when the flop benefits the pre-flop opener.

Flop strategy is about knowing who has the advantage—the preflop aggressor or defender—based on how their ranges connect with the board.

Ranges with an edge can bet more often and a larger size, using strong hands and bluffs effectively. Study which flops favor each player type, and in-game, press your advantage or play carefully when outmatched. Good luck at the tables!

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The following links are recommended resources related to this section’s theme. Don’t stay in doubt--dive in! 🔔

• CBets: Discover how professionals continuation bet.
• Math: Learn poker math tactics for strategic online players.
• Ranges: Learn how to calculate & use poker ranges.
• Pot Odds: Learn how to calculate pot odds for online poker.
• Discord Community: Join the coolest poker community, don’t be shy! Use it to ask questions and interact with other poker enthusiasts and professionals.