by Andrew Brokos
Originally Published in Two Plus Two Internet Magazine, August 2007 issue
Everything proceeds backwards from the river. In pot limit and no limit hold ’em, pot size, and thus bet size, grow exponentially on each street. This means that mistakes made on the river are more costly than those made on other streets, so much so that the risk of making a mistake on the river may dictate a fold earlier in the hand. Conversely, the possibility of bluffing and/or value-betting certain river cards may turn a marginal fold into a call.
Despite the importance of river play, many tournament players neglect it. This was particularly evident to me during the World Series of Poker, where I saw numerous players opt to check the river rather than make a thin value bet. Compounding the intrinsic error of passing up a +EV bet is the fact that overly passive river play makes it easier for your opponents to play marginal hands against you on earlier streets.
In this article, I examine two hands I played during the WSOP where assumptions about an opponent’s river betting range influenced the action. I conclude each sample hand with a brief discussion of what I consider the broader implications of the situation in which I found myself on the river.
Hand 1
This hand occurred in the last hour of day 2 of the main event. I had recently been moved to a new table and had a well-above-average stack of 330,000 chips the largest at my table. From the moment I sat down, I had been very aggressive, open raising several times from late position and re-raising the player on my immediate right the first time he open raised.
Blinds were 1200-2400 with a 300 ante, and I was in the BB. Action folded around to the SB, who completed. I raised 5000 more with a pair of 4’s, and he called. The flop was 9d 6d 2s, my opponent checked, I bet 8000, and he called. We both checked a Qc on the turn, and then he bet 18,000 when another 2 came on the river.
With three overcards and an underpair on the board, my small pair was not looking so hot. Then again, there were a lot of draws on the flop that all missed on the river, so it was possible that my opponent was bluffing after failing to make his hand. It also occurred to me that, given how aggressive I had been, my opponent could reasonably put me on almost any two cards when I raised his completion pre-flop, made a standard continuation bet on the flop, and then seemingly gave up on the turn.
What ultimately swayed my decision was my observation that so few players at the WSOP had shown the ability to make a river value bet that was at all thin. Consequently, I expected my opponent’s range to be polarized. That is, I thought he would have either a very strong hand, such as trip deuces, or a hand with very little showdown value, such as 87 for a busted straight draw. My fours could only beat a bluff, so my opponent needed to be bluffing 28% of the time to make a call correct. If I determine that he is either bluffing or value betting trips, then as long as he does not trips or better 72% of the time, a call is correct.
Based on this reasoning, I called, and my opponent showed T9 to win the pot. He had bet middle pair for value. Does this mean my assumptions about the value betting range of an unknown WSOP player were mistaken? Not necessarily, because, as I later learned, my opponent in this hand was none other than professional poker Robert Mizrachi.
Had I realized that this river bet was coming from a professional, I would have folded. I expect a better player to be capable of making a thin river value bet, which means that I can no longer expect my opponent’s betting range to be polarized as either very strong or very weak. Though he may still bluff his busted draws on the river, Mizrachi is clearly capable of betting a pair of nines and possibly even worse hands for value on the river, especially when he knows that that I may call light based on all of the draws that missed. The presence of so many one pair hands in his betting range means that he is bluffing much less often and that a fold is correct.
Hand 2
In this hand, I was on the other side of the equation, putting my opponent to a tough decision on the river. It was early in the $5000 six-handed no limit hold ’em event. Blinds were 100-200 with a 25 ante, and I raised under the gun to 600 with AQ off-suit. Both players in the blinds called the raise, and the three of us saw a Ts 8s 3d flop.
This is not the best flop to continuation bet into two players, but the SB was kind of loose pre-flop, and once he called the BB was getting pretty good odds to see a flop with a wide range, so I felt there was a chance my hand was still good. Both players checked to me, and I bet 1400. The SB folded, but the BB called.
The turn was an off-suit four, and we both checked. A Js on the river completed a possible flush, and my opponent checked again. I fired a bluff of 3200, and my opponent went into the tank, finally calling with T9.
Although I did not discuss this hand with my opponent, I have thought about it quite a bit since, and I imagine that his reasoning for calling the river was similar to my reasoning in the hand discussed above. The truth is that a lot of players will check down strong one pair hands when a possible flush gets there on the river for fear of getting check-raised. My opponent had no way of knowing that I was not one of these players, so if he thinks that my range is polarized to either a flush or no pair, then his call make sense.
In actuality, however, I am capable of taking this exact line with a great many hands that beat T9, including JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AJ, and AT. If my opponent knew that I was capable of value betting all of those hands even though a third spade came on the river, I think he would have to fold.
The Threat of a Bet
The other thing I have thought about with regard to this hand is whether I should have bluffed the turn. Would my opponent have called a second barrel with top pair and a weak kicker? I’ll never know, of course, but I want to point out that in deciding whether to call the turn, one thing he would have to consider is what kind of decision he would face on the river. If he did not expect me to bluff and/or value bet well on the river, then he would have an easier call on the turn. If, however, he knew me to be capable of both triple barrel bluffing and betting a hand like KK for value on three streets, he might decide just to fold the turn rather than play a big pot with a marginal hand out of position against a tough, tricky opponent.
This increase in the success rate of a bluff on the turn illustrates the additional value you can generate if you play well on the river. Especially in tournaments, where stealing pots is such an important element of a winning strategy, you want your opponents to feel uncomfortable calling you down with marginal hands. Flop and turn bets are much more threatening when a player must fear another difficult decision on the river.
To take advantage of this dynamic, however, requires the ability to make thin value bets on the river. A lot of players tend towards overly cautious play, particularly with regard to large bets. It stands to reason, then, that since the bets are larger, many players are overly cautious about value betting the river.
Conclusion
It’s an elementary concept, but it bears repeating: you don’t need to be very confident in your hand to bet for value on the river. You just have to suspect that your opponent will call with worse hands more often than he will call with better hands or raise. (Actually, the risk of a bluff raise has to be given extra weight since incorrectly folding would cost you the entire pot rather than just your bet, but opponents too timid to make clear value bets on the river are not going to raise on a bluff very often at all).
In addition to the intrinsic EV of a thin value bet, demonstrating to your opponents that you are capable of such a bet can earn you added equity down the line. They will have to fear a difficult decision on the street where mistakes are at their most costly, and consequently they will allow you to steal from them at less expense earlier in the hand. So practice your river play, learn how to put your opponents to tough decisions, and watch the value flow downstream. ”