Betting Your Hand

There are lots of skills that professional poker players acquire over the course of their careers that separate them from recreational players. One of the most important of those skills is extracting value from good but not great hands. Most halfway-decent players have learned how to minimize losses with medium-strength hands. They know that they’re not supposed to pay off big bets without big hands, so they don’t. Maximizing wins, however, is another story.

Most amateur players, even the serious ones who work on their games and aspire to making some big cashes in the World Series of Poker or other major events, struggle to win as much as they should win when their hands are strong but not the nuts. There is a huge temptation for these players to check behind, especially on the river, with a hand that can’t stand a check-raise — and it’s hard to call a river check-raise with just about any one-pair or two-pair hand you can think of. A cautious player’s thinking might go something like this: “I can just check and see a showdown, and probably win. If I bet, I might get check-raised and have to fold; or worse, I might get called by a better hand when I could’ve escaped with a smaller loss. Also, I know that I’ll keep on surviving and will stay in the tournament if I check. I’ll just check.”

The problem with this logic is that many players will call a bet on the river with one pair, or a weak two pair. So, if you have two small pair, or even one big pair, there is a good chance that you’re costing yourself money by checking in position. When an opponent has been checking and calling on earlier streets, the probability that he is checking the river to trap with a big hand is usually far outweighed by the probability that he is checking and hoping for a showdown himself. And most players aren’t tricky enough to check-raise bluff on the river (although you should be aware of those players who are), so your decision if you get check-raised shouldn’t be all that tough.

Then there’s the tournament survival aspect. If you’ve read any of my columns over the past five years, you probably know that I think tournament survival is an overrated concept, especially in the early and middle stages. To put some numbers to it, let’s say that you have 100,000 in chips, there’s 50,000 in the pot on the river, and your opponent checks to you. If you check behind and win, you’ll have 150,000 in chips. If you make a value-bet of 30,000 and get called, you’ll have 180,000. You increase your stack size (and therefore your chances of winning the tournament) by 20 percent if you value-bet rather than check. That’s pretty serious upside. If you continually pass on that kind of upside, you’ll find yourself with no chips in the late stages, if you’re lucky enough to cash at all. Obviously, you risk a hit to your stack if your read is wrong, or if your opponent is playing very carefully with a hand that’s bigger than yours, but the potential reward generally makes this risk worthwhile.

Let me give you a real-life example, in which the concept is the same but the situation is slightly different. I recently played all five days of the Borgata Winter Open, a tournament with a very deep structure in which players start with 600 big blinds. The following hand occurred on day two, with blinds of 600-1,200 and a 100 ante. I had 245,000 in chips, still a very comfortable 200-plus big blinds. I was dealt two aces in early-middle position, and opened for 3,300. The player to my left called, as did two others.

The flop came Q-5-4 rainbow, and after the big blind checked, I bet 9,000 into the 14,000 pot. The player to my left called, and everyone else folded. My opponent started the hand with about 140,000, plenty of chips to be considered deep.

The turn brought an 8, and I checked, planning to call. My opponent bet 20,000 into the 32,000 pot, and I called.

The river brought a 6, making the board Q-5-4-8-6. A lot of amateur players instinctively check in situations like this one, fearing the very possible straight. But let’s review the hand. I checked the turn, hoping that a queen would bet. There weren’t too many hands I could put him on that actually improved to be the best hand on the river. Pocket sevens probably would’ve checked the turn, and any other hand with a 7 in it probably would’ve folded the flop (except 7-6, which already would have improved to the straight on the turn). No, most of my opponent’s range consisted of queens: Q-10, Q-J, K-Q, A-Q. And my opponent would almost certainly check those hands back to me if I checked.

I decided to make a value-bet of 37,000. I’d lose the same as I would’ve lost to a set or straight if I checked and called (unless my opponent made a really bad check behind with a set), but I would gain 37,000 if he had a queen and decided to call. My opponent called immediately, which had me worried. But, I tabled my hand and it was good. My opponent later claimed to have had A-Q. While he could’ve very plausibly had a set or a straight, I was confident enough in my read, and in my ability to make a solid decision if I got raised, to go ahead and value-bet the river. This time it worked out — and as long as it continues to work out more often than it doesn’t, I’ll be ahead in the long run.

It’s very tempting, in the heat of battle, to say, “The pot’s big enough, I check.” (In fact, I literally hear amateurs saying this all the time.) But missing out on value-bets is a massive leak, and it’s often the last leak that otherwise solid players have to fix before they rise to the level of the professional ranks. I hope this column helps to get you over that hump and into the world of the value-betting pros.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com.