Poker Definitions: ‘On the Come’
Betting or acting ‘on the come’ in poker refers to situations when a player bets or moves forward with his hand with the expectation that the hand will improve as it moves forward. For instance, a player with an open-ended straight draw on the flop may go ahead and bet into the other players in the hand, or ‘lead out,’ with the hope that he will make his hand on further streets. Betting ‘on the come’ carries with it the expectation that if the poker player does make his hand on the turn or river after having already represented a valuable hand, he will have disguised his draw as a made hand and that he will then be able to exploit that image. Betting on the come can be dangerous in that if the player runs up against a hand that another player feels he must defend, he or she then might get reraised and thus shut out of seeing future streets, thereby eliminating the value he was betting on. It’s a pretty awful feeling to have invested money in a pot and then be shut out of seeing the possibility of making it to the online pokerhand you were drawing to. Many players, then, might argue that betting on the come in the long run is a losing proposition, but in the right conditions it can lead to profits, if luck and time come together.
