The Rainbow

The "Rainbow" is when the table cards flops no suit pairs. There is one suit each: club, heart and a diamond in this case. Here it means no flush is possible in spades. And unless two suit cards come in one of the cards that hit the flop no flush is possible.

In this hand what I refere to as a complete rainbow hits the turn. No flush is possible after the turn. No bets have been placed. Can you guess what pocket cards I am holding? I like to trap... it seems to fit my style of play as I prefer to know the whole story before going into production. But of course there are times to bet before the unfolding of all the table cards. The danger is you may allow the other player to "catch up" (sometimes your hand is so strong you want them to catch up) and defeat your strong hand with an even stronger hand or you will have to bet with no return for your strong hand at the end of the road. A point to slow playing a strong hand if you have a calling station in the hand it may make no difference if you bet out as the player will just call you down hitting their better hand. By slow playing you could very well save chips. Did you have a guess at my pocket cards? The advantage of even slow playing a pocket pair without a pre-flop, the strength of a hand is concealed. Here I hit the flop with a set with a less concealed hand. This hand taken from a tourney game on "Pi" heads up as we are the two last players. My opponent bet on the turn I smooth called. I guessed perfectly he had a 6 and thought he may have had hit two pair. But somehow I doubted it. The turn produced a scare card a possible straight. But, if I read him correctly he would be gone. Other ideas namely table history of previous play and his profile experience and bank roll [375k] is about all the information one can get on a player you haven't played with before. He bet out I called and my read was on the spot. PE [P.S. I did not invent the term "Rainbow]