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holdem theory on river play, CapnD, 17. Feb 2003 06:52
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In the Theory of Poker, Sklansky has a section on river play when you are out of position. In this section he says something to the nature of, "If your opponent will call with more hands than he will bet and your hand is worth a call if he bets, then you should bet yourself"*. I have read this many times in many Sklansky books, but I never hear many people discuss it. Maybe the concept is so intuitive to most people that they feel there is no need to discuss it. Maybe this concept lends so little to your overall hourly win rate that its not worth discussing, but I feel it's an interesting concept. Since in many middle limit (20/40 and up) hold'em games you tend to be heads-up on the river a lot, this situation comes up all the time.

As an example, lets say your in the big blind and call a late position raiser with something like 98s. Board is something like J9722, and you have check-called the flop and turn**. I think its mandatory to bet the river in a situation like this because the raiser is most likely only going to bet hands that beat you on the river. By betting you will probably get paid off by dry aces and lower pairs which would have not bet the river.

Another example would be when you raise with something like AJo, and then get 3-bet, there's an ace on the flop, and you go into rope-a-dope mode. You would probably want to bet the river to get paid off by underpairs, since they are unlikely to bet the river for you.

To steal an example from Abdul, lets say that you 3-bet a late position raiser with 55 and you bet the flop and the turn. Most players will check the river, but I think a bet is called for. There are many hands your opponent will pay off with that he would not bet.

There are also other reasons to thin value bet. Here is a quote from an article by Abdul that he wrote about defending the big blind. This quote is taken from his part on river play.

"I favor lots of betting, to give my opponents the opportunity to make the bigger mistake of folding when they should call [as opposed to check-calling to pick off bluffs]. I find that when I thin value bet a hand, my opponent sometimes stupidly lays down a better hand so I was actually bluffing unintentionally. My opponents also get very frustrated when I thin value bet with a baby pair and they try to pick off a bluff by calling with AJ high. Then they tend to start folding those sorts of hands when I'm bluffing."

Basically, if you don't bet your opponent can't make the catastrophic mistake of folding a better hand.

There are exceptions to this rule, though. One would be when you are in a situation where your opponent would bet more hands than he would call with. For instance, in the first example most players will bet hands like KQ/KT/K8/QT/Q8 on the turn because of the overcard/straight outs, and will bet the river with these hands as a bluff but would probably not call a bet with them.
.
Another exception would be when your opponent has a very broad range of steal hands and is aggressive enough to bet them the whole way. It might be best to just let your opponent hang himself on the river.

Another exception would be if your opponent rarely (or never) bluffs and would ONLY bet a hand that would beat you. If that is the case, then you could just check-fold if he bets the river. The only problem with this is that the odds you are getting are usually pretty significant on the river, so folding could be a catastrophic error. Also, as Sklansky states in the Theory of Poker, if your hand is almost worth a call if you check and your opponent bets then many times the more beneficial play is for you to bet. He gives an example of this in his book, but I am not going to go into it here.

There are some fallbacks to thin value betting the river. You must be careful that you balance this "thin value betting" concept by betting the river with some very strong hands, or else your opponents may start raising the river with impunity, and you definitely don't want to encourage this. One reason this works so well is that few opponents will raise the river without a very strong hand, so you don't want to encourage them to raise more often. For example, there is a guy I play with on a regular basis who will check-call all the way and then suddenly fire into you on the river. The first couple of times it confused me, but now I have learned to raise him with impunity. Just yesterday, he limped UTG with KQo, and I raised with 2 black aces. Flop comes QJx with all hearts. Turn brings a black 9 and the river was a blank, and suddenly he bets into me on the river after I have been betting it the whole way. Normally, I would just call here as the board is rather scary, but I raised and got paid off.

I may be out in the weeds here, so please comment if you think I'm wrong. I wrote this for two reasons. One, it helps me tremendously to take notes as I think and to go back and review those later. And two, all this may be wrong and I would like to learn that now instead of thousands of dollars into the future.

CapnD

*This may not be exactly what he says, but its pretty close I think
**I am not saying that check-calling the flop and turn is the right play. In fact, most of the time if I flop middle pair in this situation I am going to come out betting on the flop.
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Re: holdem theory on river play, Roy Cooke, 17. Feb 2003 09:00
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My replies are underneath portions of the post!

Roy Cooke

on 17. Feb 2003 06:52 CapnD wrote:
>
> In the Theory of Poker, Sklansky has a section on river play when you are out
> of position. In this section he says something to the nature of, "If your
> opponent will call with more hands than he will bet and your hand is worth a
> call if he bets, then you should bet yourself"*. I have read this many times in
> many Sklansky books, but I never hear many people discuss it. Maybe the concept
> is so intuitive to most people that they feel there is no need to discuss it.
> Maybe this concept lends so little to your overall hourly win rate that its not
> worth discussing, but I feel it's an interesting concept. Since in many middle
> limit (20/40 and up) hold'em games you tend to be heads-up on the river a lot,
> this situation comes up all the time.

I agree with this, although I think it is almost never discussed is that many people do not understand what David id saying.
>
> As an example, lets say your in the big blind and call a late position raiser
> with something like 98s. Board is something like J9722, and you have
> check-called the flop and turn**. I think its mandatory to bet the river in a
> situation like this because the raiser is most likely only going to bet hands
> that beat you on the river. By betting you will probably get paid off by dry
> aces and lower pairs which would have not bet the river.

That is true, if he will call you with those hands, which means he will call with more hands than he will bet with. If he will not pay you off with those hands then checking would be a better play.
>
> Another example would be when you raise with something like AJo, and then get
> 3-bet, there's an ace on the flop, and you go into rope-a-dope mode. You would
> probably want to bet the river to get paid off by underpairs, since they are
> unlikely to bet the river for you.

I agree with this!


>
> To steal an example from Abdul, lets say that you 3-bet a late position raiser
> with 55 and you bet the flop and the turn. Most players will check the river,
> but I think a bet is called for. There are many hands your opponent will pay
> off with that he would not bet.

I there are many hands that your opponent will pay off that is true, but is there a more hands that he will call you with that you beat than beat you?...Also you need to consider a checkraise in the equation.
>
> There are also other reasons to thin value bet. Here is a quote from an
> article by Abdul that he wrote about defending the big blind. This quote is
> taken from his part on river play.
>
> "I favor lots of betting, to give my opponents the opportunity to make the
> bigger mistake of folding when they should call [as opposed to check-calling to
> pick off bluffs]. I find that when I thin value bet a hand, my opponent
> sometimes stupidly lays down a better hand so I was actually bluffing
> unintentionally. My opponents also get very frustrated when I thin value bet
> with a baby pair and they try to pick off a bluff by calling with AJ high. Then
> they tend to start folding those sorts of hands when I'm bluffing."
>
> Basically, if you don't bet your opponent can't make the catastrophic mistake
> of folding a better hand.

I agree with this if your opponent is of the teture to lay down a better hand and the pot is of reasonable size.
>
> There are exceptions to this rule, though. One would be when you are in a
> situation where your opponent would bet more hands than he would call with. For
> instance, in the first example most players will bet hands like KQ/KT/K8/QT/Q8
> on the turn because of the overcard/straight outs, and will bet the river with
> these hands as a bluff but would probably not call a bet with them.

Very good point!


> .
> Another exception would be when your opponent has a very broad range of steal
> hands and is aggressive enough to bet them the whole way. It might be best to
> just let your opponent hang himself on the river.

Very true!


>
> Another exception would be if your opponent rarely (or never) bluffs and would
> ONLY bet a hand that would beat you. If that is the case, then you could just
> check-fold if he bets the river. The only problem with this is that the odds
> you are getting are usually pretty significant on the river, so folding could be
> a catastrophic error. Also, as Sklansky states in the Theory of Poker, if your
> hand is almost worth a call if you check and your opponent bets then many times
> the more beneficial play is for you to bet. He gives an example of this in his
> book, but I am not going to go into it here.

Also true!


>
> There are some fallbacks to thin value betting the river. You must be careful
> that you balance this "thin value betting" concept by betting the river with
> some very strong hands, or else your opponents may start raising the river with
> impunity, and you definitely don't want to encourage this. One reason this
> works so well is that few opponents will raise the river without a very strong
> hand, so you don't want to encourage them to raise more often. For example,
> there is a guy I play with on a regular basis who will check-call all the way
> and then suddenly fire into you on the river. The first couple of times it
> confused me, but now I have learned to raise him with impunity. Just yesterday,
> he limped UTG with KQo, and I raised with 2 black aces. Flop comes QJx with all
> hearts. Turn brings a black 9 and the river was a blank, and suddenly he bets
> into me on the river after I have been betting it the whole way. Normally, I
> would just call here as the board is rather scary, but I raised and got paid
> off.
>
> I may be out in the weeds here, so please comment if you think I'm wrong. I
> wrote this for two reasons. One, it helps me tremendously to take notes as I
> think and to go back and review those later. And two, all this may be wrong and
> I would like to learn that now instead of thousands of dollars into the
> future.
>
> CapnD


I think you have done a great job of thinking the equation through. I know few players who can put something like the above together in their mind or on paper. I do think you need to consider the size of the pot in the equation as it is of importance as to increasing/decreasing the chances of winning/losing the pot.


>
> *This may not be exactly what he says, but its pretty close I think
> **I am not saying that check-calling the flop and turn is the right play. In
> fact, most of the time if I flop middle pair in this situation I am going to
> come out betting on the flop.

Great question...Well written

Roy Cooke
>
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Re: holdem theory on river play, stdioh, 17. Feb 2003 09:38
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> > Another exception would be if your opponent rarely (or never) bluffs and would
> > ONLY bet a hand that would beat you. If that is the case, then you could just
> > check-fold if he bets the river. The only problem with this is that the odds
> > you are getting are usually pretty significant on the river, so folding could be
>
> > a catastrophic error. Also, as Sklansky states in the Theory of Poker, if your
> > hand is almost worth a call if you check and your opponent bets then many times
> > the more beneficial play is for you to bet. He gives an example of this in his
> > book, but I am not going to go into it here.
>
> Also true!

I think that there is one thing to mention in this regard. If you're playing a fairly rockish ABC player and he bets the river against your check in this situation and you can read that he's betting the best hand, but it is far from the nuts, sometimes a checkraise bluff can induce a catastrophic fold. It doesn't have to work very often to pay for itself and I think it is worth adding to your repertoire, so long as you use it very sparingly and only against just the right sort of player.
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