Betting the River

Ok enough of this prop betting bs. This is a poker blog, goddammit, so let's talk about some poker hands. Like many intermediate players (I don't think I'm a beginner and I'm definitely not an expert, so I guess intermediate is all that's left), I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing pre-flop, and on the flop, but I find myself making a lot of mistakes on later streets. I think there are a couple of reasons it takes longer to become a good player on the turn and river: first, there are more situations that could arise, since you have all the same number of possibilities of cards, position, and preflop action, now multiplied by turn and river possiblities, and flop, turn, and river action. Second, since relatively few hands get to the turn or river, you don't get as much practice on these streets.

Another thing I've noticed about NL100 and NL200 is that the really successful players are EXCELLENT value bettors. Winning at these levels is really about extracting value from players that love to call down with top pair-no kicker, more than it is about running big bluffs or even sniffing out coolers and hands like an overpair vs. a set (although being successful with these plays can obviously only help your win rate).

In any case, in a previous post I criticized what I thought was a bad river play by my opponent, betting when only better hands call. Here's a hand where I made the opposite mistake, checking the river when I should be betting for value:

$1/$2 (9-handed)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BLUECHIPS [9h 8h]
UTG($77) raises to $3
BLUECHIPS calls $2 in BB - (I don't really like my call here, especially vs. a villain without a full stack and no other callers. I usually wouldn't do it, but it was a fairly small raise, and since the virrain here is 20/7/0.75, I thought his hand was pretty strong, so if I hit something good I can get a lot of value. And if I get a draw, his low AF indicates I might be able to get to the river fairly cheap. This is the type of player against whom my positional disadvantage isn't so great.)

*** FLOP *** [8c 8d Ah] - (This definitely qualifies as something good, time to go to valuetown.)
BLUECHIPS bets $4
UTG calls $4 - (Good result. I should have bet more here though. I think at the time I was thinking, "I'll bet weak and hope he raises, and he might call down smaller bets with QQ." But a player with an AF of less than one is not going to raise too often. The pot is $6, so I should probably make it more like $5 or $6. Not necessarily because I need to get that much value on THIS street, but building a bigger pot now allows me to make bigger bets on later streets without ever overbetting.)

*** TURN *** [8c 8d Ah] [6d] - (Definitely betting again. Again, here I think I bet too little. Given that he called the flop bet, he probably has AQ or AK. If he has QQ, he's probably not calling any more no matter how much I bet on the turn. The pot is now $14, I think $12-$14 is better than $10.)
BLUECHIPS bets $10
UTG calls $10

*** RIVER *** [8c 8d Ah 6d] [2h] - (The deuce changes nothing, obviously. The pot is now $34. Note that if I had bet pot on the flop and turn, the pot would now be $54, and I could comfortably put him all-in with a pottish-sized bet. In any case, as played, now is the time to put in another $30 bet and extract some more value out of TPGK.)
BLUECHIPS checks
UTG checks

*** SUMMARY ***
BLUECHIPS (big blind) showed [9h 8h] and won ($32.80) with three of a kind, Eights
UTG mucked [Qc As] - two pair, Aces and Eights

WTF??? Where was that good-sized value bet I was talking about? Well, all of the sudden I got freaked out and convinced myself he was slowplaying AA the whole way down. Of course, this is possible. But I can not allow him to check down AQ right there. Terrible play on my part. If I bet the 30, obviously he will shove with AA, and then I'm faced with a tough decision. Players with AFs below 1 don't shove TPGK on the river too often. But they also don't bet it when checked to on the river when there's a pair on the board. So as played, if he bets, I probably call, and lose money to top boat just as if I had bet the money myself.

Betting trip 8s here is not betting when only better hands call. Of course there are better hands that I could be betting into, namely top boat, but there are also obvious second best hands that I'm betting into that will call me, namely AQ or AK. Also note how rare AA is compared to AQ and AK. Given that there's an A on the board, there are only three AA hands, but there are twelve each of AQ and AK. So if he's playing all three hands the same way (flat calling flop and turn), then the chances he has AA are 3/25 = 12%. So with trips on the river, bet and get value out of the other 88%.

Also important here is that the fact that I didn't get value on the river makes my preflop call not just marginal but terrible. I called with the intention of getting big value from a big flop. Then I got a big flop and managed to make only $17, after calling off $2. I'm pretty sure the odds of me fropping two pair or better AND the virrain fropping one pair are a lot less than 8.5:1, so when it happens I need to get a lot more value if I want to make the call before the frop.

BRUECHIPS


Not that anyone cares, but I'm going to chime in with my two cents on this post. As for the way the hand played out...here are my thoughts:

a) a little loose PF call in a HU situation...but they were sooted. However, not only were they NOT spades...they were RED. Pretty much the only way yer going to win this hand is with trips or two pair, the fRush never gets there with hearts. NEVER.

b) frop and turn...good solid donk bets, but as you mentioned - you definitely need to BET MORE! ESPECIALLY on the frop, this is the street that wirr dictate more of the the pot size than any other street (other than PF).

c) i think you can safely bet this river and fold to a shove. I do not think in general people make moves on the river that often, and if he shoves its a relatively easy fold.

The crux of this post is missed value, especially on the river...the street on which you can potentially miss the most value (assuming you have built the pot up on previous streets) from getting worse hands to call a river bet. I'm not really sure if there is anything that annoys me more in poker than MISSING a river value bet. It really requires you to replay the hand in your head, evaluating the action on every street, and measuring your hand strength relative to your virrain...and coming up with the proper bet size that will MAXIMIZE your profit. You need to find an amount and weigh the probability of getting a call (from a worse hand) vs the probability of getting a call from various other amounts. Will you get a call from an overbet? 1/2 pot? Pot? Finding that perfect amount is both an art and a science.

I'm sure BrueChips is have trouble sleeping over missing this bet on the river. One things for sure, that $30 bet he missed is the difference between him a sushi dinner vs ramen noodles for dinner tonight. ROR!

BRACKCHIPS

Actuarry it's more rike the difference between me signing up for a porn site for a month ($30) or getting a brow job from Tiffany's mom (usuarry 35 cents. Two for 50 cents on Tuesdays though.).

BRUECHIPS