Hand of the Week: Value Betting the River

Thanks to everyone who’s participated in the Hand of the Week so far. Today’s post deals with value betting the river.

Hero is UTG+2 with a $2500 stack, and most of the table covers. Action folds to Hero, who opens to $30 with 8s 7s. The hijack, button, and SB call.  For discussion of the preflop action, see this post.

Flop ($118 in pot after rake) 7h 6d 3s. Action checks to Hero. Hero checks. Button checks. For discussion of the flop action, see this post.

Turn ($118 in pot) 7h 6d 3s 3d. Action checks to Hero. Hero bets $80. HJ and Button fold. SB calls. For discussion of the turn action, see this post.

River ($278 in pot) 5c. SB checks. Hero?

Assessing the Situation

First, let’s think about what new information we’ve received since our last discussion about betting the turn. For one thing, we now know that Villain has a hand with which he would call $80 on the turn. We also now that the river card is the 5c, which promotes several of Villain’s possible holdings that Hero was beating on the turn, such as 44, 55, 64, and perhaps 98 (I’d expect Villain to play 98 more aggressively before the river, but I could be wrong about that).

Villain may not perceive it this way – many live players are poor hand readers and focus too much on what’s possible rather than what’s probable – but this is not really a good card for Hero’s range. If Hero had 98, he probably would have bet the flop (though checking would be OK too, so it’s not impossible), and there is little reason for Hero to bet hands like 55, 44, or 64 on the turn. I suppose 34 could be in Hero’s range, but that’s probably a hand Villain was already losing to.

So there are two pieces of information that strengthens Villain’s range, but also one that weakens it, which is that he checked the river. There are many spots where checking your entire range to the aggressor, but this is not one of them. Because this card is better for Villain’s range than for Hero’s, he has an incentive to bet with at least some of his strong hands on the river both to prevent Hero from taking a free showdown and because he can also benefit from this river by bluffing some of his weakest hands.

The Equilibrium Line

If Villain always bet his strong hands, then Hero could bluff and value bet this river with abandon, which would in turn give Villain incentive to check his strong hands. The range of hands Hero can beat is shrinking and he longer has anything to gain from protection, so against a tough opponent, checking behind is probably correct. If there are enough strong hands in Villain’s checking range, he doesn’t need to use weaker hands as bluff catchers, which is a limiting factor on how thinly Hero can value bet.

Chris’ comment to this effect is quite good:

I don’t see how we have much better than 40-45% vs his continuing range after the turn. It seems like we need him to both not have a bunch of 7x (all of which we lose to) and still have a bunch of optimistic 5x to have a an easy value bet, while also limiting the number of 4x he has (a debatable question given the river check). I think you need some specific reads on both his turn betting range (doesn’t semi bluff gutter balls but leads a lot of 7x) and his river donking tendencies. And God help you if he has a river cr bluff range. Unlikely but you never know and we are given no reads so I’m approaching him as an unknown. We have position and sometimes the best use of position is deciding that we can show down without putting more money in.

The Exploitive Line

In this case, I did think that my opponent was very likely to bet the river with his strongest hands. There was also something about the way he checked that led me to think he was in more of an “I don’t believe you” mindset than an “I’m trapping you” mindset.

That’s not to say that his check-calling range won’t contain some hands better than mine. It certainly will. However, I didn’t think he was going to fold anything to a river bet, and although I agree with Chris that at the moment we see the river Hero has only perhaps 40% equity, I thought that I was more like 65% against Villain’s checking range.

I wanted to bet the largest amount I thought he would call with his entire checking range so I bet $225. He quickly called (so quickly that I regretted not betting bigger, but at the time this seemed like the right amount) and mucked when I tabled my hand.

Bankroll, Variance, and Improvement

The last point that I want to make here is about the importance of playing games you’re bankrolled for. I think a lot of people avoid making big, thin bets in spots like this because they are high variance, and even if they won’t admit, many players care more about avoiding big losses than about collecting big wins. I suspect that inadequate bankrolls are part of the reason for this.

It may not seem like a big deal. After all, this spot doesn’t come up often, and the difference in EV between betting as big as I did and checking is only something like $50.

However, if you’re afraid to take risks and put big money behind uncertain situations or reads, this also hinders your ability to improve as a player. I often hear the complaint, “I have to move up in stakes or I’ll never get better, all of my opponents play so badly.”

Beating weak players for the maximum is one of the most important poker skills there is. Yes, you can win in small stakes games just by playing tight and taking the low-hanging fruit, but you are definitely leaving money on the table. Moving up in stakes won’t magically fix the problem. It may even turn you into a loser, if the fruit no longer hangs so low and you haven’t learned to reach higher.