Extracting Bonus Value on Dry Boards

Dry boards sometimes offer a golden opportunity to get extra value for your medium-strength hands, like top pair. Many players are always looking to sniff out a bluff on a dry board, and you can use that fact to your advantage if you have a hand that beats a typical bluff-catcher. In particular, you can often get pot-sized bets (or even bigger) paid off on the river by hands like unimproved pocket pairs that would never pay off such a big bet on a board that includes lots of high cards and obvious three-straights and three-flushes.

Here's a hand I played recently in which I used this principle to my advantage:

I open from the cutoff for $7 in a $1-$2 game with the J 10. The button folds, and both blinds call. I have about $200, the small blind has $120, and the big blind has us both covered.

The flop comes 4 3 3. Everyone checks.

The turn is the J. The blinds check to me, and I bet $11 into the $21 pot. The big blind calls.

The river is the 2. The big blind checks, I bet the full $43 pot, and the big blind calls and shows the 6 6.

I elected to check back the flop because I expected to get called the vast majority of the time. Whenever the flop comes with three low cards, particularly with a pair like this one, you can expect loose players to peel the flop with overcards, and tight players to show up with overpairs quite often.

Getting called wouldn't have been terrible, because I still would have position and two opportunities to either pair up or possibly push my opponent off the pot. Sometimes I would bet in a similar situation. But this time, I elected to check it back rather than set up a possible multistreet bluff.

I paired the turn, and it was checked to me again. Now it's time to extract value if I can.

Although it's not a certainty, I would expect someone with a better jack than mine to bet the turn. Someone with a 3 might choose to check it again, or might bet out. So, overall, when it's checked to me again on the turn, I think there's quite a good chance that I'm ahead and can extract value from weaker hands.

I bet half of the pot. This is a bet size that I like to use in these situations on dry boards. I can tempt calls from pocket pairs and maybe ace-high hands, and if I'm bluffing, I can force out most of the other unpaired hands. Against aggressive players, I can sometimes even induce a bluff-raise.

You could bet more here, also. Three-quarters of the pot would be a reasonable size, and even a full-pot bet would be OK. But when choosing your bet size, remember two things:

• Top pair is a fairly strong hand for your range in this situation. You want to choose a size that will work for the entire range of hands that you will have in this spot, not for just your actual hand. Betting big with good hands and small with bluffs will make your hand strength too transparent.

• Oftentimes you will have two unpaired cards and be looking for folds. However, you frequently will have this first bet called, so whatever you choose to bet, consider how a second barrel will line up for the river. For instance, let's say I had K-10 here. I would likely bet the turn just as I bet J-10. I would expect unimproved pocket pairs to call. Now, let's say the river were a queen. I would certainly bluff this card, and I would bet it hard enough to put a lot of pressure on a hand like 6-6. I want to make sure that my turn bet leaves me with the right amount behind to put in a hard-to-call river bluff.

Also, think about how your opponent is likely to read your particular line. If you're going for value as I am here, and you choose to pot the turn, you likely can't also pot the river for value. That will probably be too much money,
and it will push your opponent off most unimproved pairs.

So, you could play it pot, half-pot, but that line tends to look a little stronger than the actual line I took - half-pot, pot. My line looks more like a bluff, in my opinion, which works better when going for value.

In any event, I bet half of the pot on the turn and got called by what is likely an unimproved pocket pair. Why is this likely an unimproved pocket pair?

1. My opponent is tight, so he's not likely to have called my preflop raise with a deuce.

2. The same goes for a 3, and he's especially unlikely to have that card because there are already two on the board and he has now passed up three opportunities to be aggressive with his hand.

3. I think he likely would have bet out with a stronger jack, but even so, a jack (better or worse than mine) is definitely in his range.

4. With a flush or straight draw, I would expect him to have gotten aggressive at one of his three opportunities, but these hands are also possible.

5. Unimproved pocket pairs fit all of his actions thus far perfectly, and I think they constitute a very significant chunk of his total range.

The river is nearly perfect for me. Only the aforementioned 3 or an offsuit deuce would be better cards for me. A jack would be excellent, also (and would give me the effective nuts, to boot). These cards are good because, in my opponent's mind, my range still consists of a lot of unpaired hands that I bluffed on the turn. The cards that I mentioned are, in his mind, the safest cards for him. Therefore, he's most likely to pay off on these cards, and he'll likely pay bigger bets on them, also.

I took advantage of the great river card and went for a full-pot value-bet on the end and got paid. If the river had been any card 9 or higher, I likely would have tried a significantly smaller bet, perhaps another half-pot bet or even a one-third-pot bet. But with the deuce, I could go for full value.

That's the beauty of dry boards when you have a solid pair. You can and will get looked up "light," particularly if you give your opponent a glimmer of hope that you're weak (as I did in this hand by checking the flop and betting only half of the pot on the turn). Don't miss out on your river value!

Ed is a featured coach at StoxPoker.com. Also check out his online poker advice column, NotedPokerAuthority.com. He has authored four books on poker, most recently, Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume 1.