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What is Monotone in Poker? – Expert Strategies in 2023

Monotone in Poker

What is Monotone in Poker? – Expert Strategies in 2023

Monotone means that a selection of cards is of the same suit. It is most commonly used in Hold’em to describe flop textures. For example, if the flop lands 789 all diamonds, we could refer to the texture as “789 drab.”

Monotone can also be used to describe other scenarios, such as four preflop cards of the same suit in Omaha, or four open cards of the same suit in Stud.

Explanation of Monotone

In Hold’em and Omaha players use the following expressions to describe different types of board textures.

Rainbow – Indicates that every card on the flop is of a different suit.
(Can also be used to describe the turn.)

Two-tone – Indicates that two of the cards on the flop are of the same suit. 
(Can also be used to describe the turn.)

Monotone – Indicates that all of the cards on the flop are of the same suit.
(Can also be used to describe the turn.)

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Ragged – Opposite of “connected”. Implies there is little to no coordination between the cards on the board.  “Rag” is also the term in poker used to describe a low uncoordinated card.

Dry – Similar to ragged. Indicates that there is little in the way of flush or straight connectivity.

Drawy – Indicates that there are a large amount of possible straight draws of flush draws available on the board. 

Paired – Indicates that there is a pair on the board

Example of Monotone used in a sentence -> We saw a flop, it was King-high monotone.

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How to Use Monotone as Part of Your Poker Strategy?

The drab textures of the board mean that any player still involved in the hand may have directly thrown the flush on the flop. Therefore, caution must be exercised regarding stacking ranges. A common leak among Hold’em cash players is stacking too aggressively on drab textures.

Even otherwise strong holdings, such as two pairs and top pairs, lose value significantly in such textures. Being able to accurately measure the relative strength of our possessions in drab textures is, therefore, an important skill in Hold’em.

While many musicians imagine that monotone textures are the most attractive, they are often less dynamic than two-tone textures. Since the flush drawing may have already been completed on drab textures, they often function more like dry boards than drag boards.

How Playing Versus a C-Bet Changes on Monotone Flops

Like last time, Alex begins the video by comparing the average frequencies to play versus a C bet on all flops versus monotonous flops (calculated using a private solver). This table summarizes the comparison of him:

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Flop TypeCall FrequencyCk. Raise Freq.Raise Sizes Used
All Flops441125%, 33%, 50%, 67%, 75%, 100%
Monotone Flops53625%, 33%, 50%

As you can see, the check-magnification frequency is cut almost in half on monotonous boards, and only smaller magnification sizes are used. All this despite the fact that you will tend to face relatively small bet sizes on monotonous flops (which generally makes you more prone to raise, not less).

So the answer to a question posed in the intro is: yes, you should be relatively reluctant to put money in the pot, specifically raising, when faced with a c bet on monotonous flops.

There are two elements to consider that explain why this happens:

  1. How the ranges compare to each other. This was covered extensively in part 1.
  2. Incentives for individual hands. In other words, if each hand prefers to bet/raise/call (raise in this case) based on the ranges it faces.

The first element is still important when facing a c bet, but as already covered in part 1, today’s focus will be on the second element.

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How does this all relate to Monotone boards though?

Monotonous boards are similar to boards where we won’t have a range advantage in the way that we can have as many suited combinations as our opponent will when he calls us.

It will be easier for us and our opponents to get these types of boards, since we can both have a flush draw with only one card of the suit in our hand. We can also have many combinations of two pairs that we will want to bet, as well as strong sets or high pairs.

So how often and how much should we bet?

We can bet on these boards about half the time using our strongest hands to make up a large part of this percentage, in addition to using some of our best semi-bluffs to make up the rest.

In doing so we will want to use a small size as these are boards, we will want to hold very weak stakes with small bets and not allow ourselves to only get big hand action or premium draws with large size.

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What are the odds of a monotone flop?

When the first card comes, it doesn’t matter what the suit is, so 52 out of 52 cards can make a monotone flop. The chance of this happening is 52/52. When the second card comes, it has to match the same suit as the first card. That’s 12 possible cards out of the 51 cards remaining. The chance of this happening is 12/51.

When the third card comes, it has to match the same suit again. That’s 11 possible cards out of the 50 cards remaining. The chance of this happening is 11/50. So to get the chance of all three happening, we can multiply the three together. So we do (52/52) * (12/51) * (11/50) = 0.0518, or about 5.18%.

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In today’s article, we’re going to talk about the flop, the street that can lead you to glory or to spill a veritable truckload of chips. On the flop, the possibilities are many, you can hit nothing, the strongest hand or that tempting draw. But what are the different types of flops that can appear, and what is the math behind first street? Basically, we have three types of flop analyzing the suits and three types analyzing the cards. Today, we’ll look at the flop by suit.

1. The Monotone FlopThe monotone flop is one of the most feared and often inhibits the action as it brings three cards of the same suit. This type of flop occurs 5.18% of the time. That’s about five times every hundred hands.
Examples:
9 ♣ 7 ♣ A ♣
7 ♦ 4 ♦ K ♦



2. The Rainbow FlopIf players are careful with the monotone flop, rainbow is where most continuation bets and check-raises happen. The explanation is simple: this type of flop brings three cards of different suits, straight draws are usually dry boards. This is a flop you will see frequently, about four times every ten hands (39.77%).
Examples:
A ♦ Q ♠ J ♥
2 ♠ 3 ♣ 9 ♦



3. The Flop with Flush DrawThis is the type of flop you will see most, the one with two cards of the same suit, that is, with a draw to a flush. It occurs 55.05% of the time. Every two times the flop is hit, one of them will bring a flush draw.

Examples:
5 ♥ 8 ♥ K ♣
6 ♠ 10 ♠ J ♦



Note that if we add up the probabilities of the three flops appearing, of course, we get 100%. But how do we get to these percentages?

The basis for calculations is the same. Let’s suppose that I want to know what the chances of the three suits are different:

a) The first card can be any one of the deck, which contains 52 cards, so we have: 52/52;

b) The second card cannot be the same suit as the first. So now we have 51 cards in the deck, but 12 of them are no longer good. Thus, we will have: 39/51;

c) The third card cannot be the same as the first or the second. We now have 50 cards in the deck, but 24 of them (12 + 12) are no longer good for us. The calculation will then be 26/50.

d) Multiplying axbxc, we arrive at 39.77%.
The number of possible combinations for a flop is 22,100. Therefore, 8,788 flop combinations will be rainbow, with three cards of different suit.

If you want to calculate the flop with a flush draw, in the second term, instead of 39/51, we will have 12/51, where 12 is the number of cards that serve us. In the third term, so that the flop is not monotone, 39 is the number of cards that can appear, which gives us 39/50. However, as the flop has three cards, this event can happen in three different ways. So, in addition to 52/52 x 12/51 x 39/50, we have to multiply everything by 3, which will give us 55.05%.

What if I want to calculate a suited-suited flush draw, with two diamonds and a random third, or two clubs and a random third, for example? It’s also simple. We will only change the first term in the previous example. As we are only interested in one suit, only 13 cards suit us instead of 52, so we have 13/52. The final score will be 13/52 x 12/51 x 39/50 x 3, ie 13.76%. Note that since we have four suits, if we multiply this number by 4, we get to approximately 55%, which is the number of times the board will have a flush draw.

This and other subjects are even more detailed in my book, released by Raise Editora, “Easy Mathematics of Poker” .

Last update on 2022-01-29 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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