December 12, 2008

Betting the River for Value

One thing I've been working on recently is betting for value on the river. There are a lot of spots where you have a medium-strength hand that is often best. When deciding whether to bet, you need to consider 1) whether your opponent will bluff if you bet, 2) whether your opponent will bluff if you check (only applies when out of position, obviously), 3) whether your opponent will call with a worse hand, and 4) (again, only applies out of position) whether your opponent will bet for value with a hand worse than yours. Most players (all except the most aggro sharks and the biggest aggro-nut retards) raise the river as a bluff very very rarely. So in most situations with a medium strength hand on the river, if you bet for value and get raised, you can safely muck (this requires discipline on your part, but is necessary to make betting the best play). Also most players will check behind a medium strength hand on the river. If you check/call instead of betting, vs. most players, you're shifting their betting range to a mix of missed draws and very strong hands, whereas if you bet, their calling range is more medium strength hands. Here are a couple of examples of what I mean, where I have two pair in each case, can't really call a raise in either case, but if I check, the opponent probably checks behind and I miss value:

Seat 2: MP2 ($200)
Seat 4: bruechips (SB) ($789.95)
Seat 6: UTG donk ($322.80)
Seat 9: MP1 ($177.40)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [Qs Ks]
UTG donk calls $2
MP1 calls $2
MP2 calls $2
bruechips calls $1
BB checks

*** FLOP *** [Ts 8c Qd]
bruechips checks
BB checks
UTG bets $5
MP1 folds
MP2 folds
bruechips calls $5 (This frop is good for me but I'm probably way behind if a big pot develops, so I decided to play it conservatively)
BB folds

*** TURN *** [Ts 8c Qd] [Kc]
bruechips checks
UTG bets $10
bruechips calls $10 (Looking back I should probably raise this one...I'm really only worried about TT, 88, J9, and AJ, and there are a lot of two-pair combos that might put in a bunch of money.)

*** RIVER *** [Ts 8c Qd Kc] [Js]
bruechips bets $25 (Here's the decision in question. The J puts a 4-card straight on the board. Since he's a donk, he probably won't be folding any Q or better if I bet, but will check anything but an A behind. The only danger is that I bet into a 9 which might have checked behind if I checked as well.)
UTG calls $25

*** SHOW DOWN ***
UTG mucked [Qc 7c] - a pair of Queens

Nice call, moron...limping Q7s UTG...genius play.

Here's another one:

Seat 3: bruechips (SB) ($200)
Seat 7: MP1 ($361.35)
Seat 8: MP2 ($102.15)
Seat 9: CO ($425.75)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [4d 5d]
MP1 calls $2
MP2 calls $2
CO calls $2
bruechips calls $1
BB checks

*** FLOP *** [5h Ad 4s]
bruechips bets $7 (I usually like to bet out here because it's so likely that somebody has an ace and bottom two pair needs protection.)

BB folds
MP1 folds
MP2 calls $7
CO folds

*** TURN *** [5h Ad 4s] [8s]
bruechips bets $19 (67 gets there, but keep getting value from an ace...)
MP2 calls $19

*** RIVER *** [5h Ad 4s 8s] [7c]
bruechips bets $30 (This seems like a pretty terrible card since he could have 87, A7, A6, 63, all these hands that now beat me...but he'll also be checking behind a bare ace if I check, so I might as well bet to get value from those hands.)
MP2 calls $30

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Seat 8: MP2 mucked [Ac Qh] - a pair of Aces

Enable your raise button preflop, donkey!!

-BRUECHIPS

2 comments:

Gnome said...

In the second hand, if you think it's likely your opponent has an Ace, why not go for a check-raise? I take the CR line many times when I flop a set with an Ace on the board.

spritpot said...

I assume you mean on the flop, not the river. Check/raising isn't a bad line. I'd use it sometimes. The danger is obviously that it gets checked around, which is a definite possibility.