Demystifying Thin Value Betting

I love getting poker ooohs. Poker ooohs are the sounds a table full of players make at a showdown when something remarkable has happened. They usually come in a big pot when the hands at showdown aren’t as strong as they’re supposed to be.

Showdown ooohs come in two flavors. One comes when you make a big call with a weak hand and catch someone bluffing. The other comes when you bet a weak hand for a lot of money, get called, and win.

I love getting both types of ooohs. When I hear someone oooh at me, I’m hearing them say, “Wow, I never would have made as much money from that hand.” If I’m regularly playing hands for big money differently from how my opponents would — and I’m winning at least a good share of these hands — then I’m doing something very right.
If you’ve never heard your table oooh at you during the showdown, it’s time to push the envelope.

While snapping off bluffs is fun, this article is about thin value betting.

Anatomy Of A Thin Value Bet

Typically when I successfully value bet thinly on the river, there are three ingredients:

• A falsely scary board
• An easily countable set of hands for my opponents
• A credible threat that the bet is a bluff

Recently I played a hand where all three of these conditions came together to produce a thin value bet.

It was $2-$5 in Las Vegas. I was playing about $1,500, and both of my opponents had over $800.

In the lead-up to this hand, I had made a large turn bluff-raise against an opponent who subsequently left the game. The bluff didn’t work out. Then in another hand I made a continuation bet in a multiway pot, and the main villain in the example hand raised me. I folded, and he showed a bluff.

I open-raised to $20 with Q-Q from middle position. Two players behind me called, and both blinds called. There was $100 in the pot and five to the flop.

The flop came 7-5-4 with two spades. I lacked the Q. The blinds checked, and I bet $60. Both players behind called, and the blinds folded. There was $280 in the pot.

The turn was an offsuit ten. I bet $160 and both players called. There was $760 in the pot, and still three players to the river.

The river was another offsuit ten. I bet $375. The first player quickly called, and the other player folded.

I showed and was good. Commence the ooohs. My neighbor asked me, “You weren’t afraid of the scary board?”

Let’s go through the three ingredients to a river value bet and see how they apply in this situation.

First, we have a falsely scary board. The flop came three to a straight with a flush draw. There’s no doubt that these flops increase the chance that an overpair will lose more often than on a flop such as J-2-2. But this flop actually offers as much opportunity as threat for someone with an overpair.

Three-straight boards with no gaps are much more threatening than those with one gap (which in turn are more threatening than those with two gaps). No gap boards serve up a double-whammy to an overpair owner: it’s a lot more likely that a made straight is out there, and most of the drawing hands are strong against an overpair.

Consider 7-6-5 versus 7-5-4. On 7-6-5, there are three made straights, 9-8, 8-4, and 4-3. Most players won’t play 8-4 or 4-3 (at least not offsuit). But players play 9-8 offsuit all the time.

On 7-5-4, there are only two made straights, 8-6 and 6-3. Again we can discount 6-3. And 8-6 is a hand players are less likely to play offsuit. Overall, it’s much more likely that someone has flopped a straight on the no-gap board. (It would be even more likely if the cards were higher like 9-8-7.)

Furthermore, the draws are stronger on the no-gap boards. Say someone held 8-7 on either board. On 7-6-5 that gives the player a pair and an open-ender. On 7-5-4 it offers a pair and a gutshot. An overpair performs much better against the draw on the gapped board. Overall, there are more and stronger draws on a no-gap flop than on a flop with gaps.

The turn ten is a great card for me, since it’s an undercard that bricks the draws. The river ten was nearly a perfect river card. It’s unlikely my opponents called me on the flop holding a ten, so it’s quite unlikely the river beats me. Furthermore, it counterfeits anyone who flopped two pair.

The board seems to look scary to my opponents, but to me it actually looks very safe. Few hand combinations beat me, and a good bulk of them (flopped sets, in particular) I would expect to have raised me by the turn.

Let’s move on to the second ingredient. We can count the hands my opponents can have.
As I said before, I think flopped sets are unlikely at this point because few players would slowplay a set twice in a three-way pot with so many draws available. From my perspective, getting two calls (and no raise) on the turn all but rules out a set.

A flopped straight is still possible, but again the required 8-6 and 6-3 combos are unlikely.

A ten is also unlikely. The most reasonable scenario would be a spade draw with a ten in it. There are six of these hands that make sense (A-10 through 10-8 of spades).

The final hands that can beat me are A-A and K-K. While I consider these hands unlikely given the action, I believe they are possible given how my opponents seemed to play (the one who bluff-raised me on the flop earlier in particular might have these pairs). There are twelve combos of these hands, but I don’t count all twelve because of the chance my opponent would have raised earlier in the hand.

That’s six legitimate hands that beat me, another twelve unlikely ones, and some small chance I run into a flopped set or straight.

What about hands I beat? J-J, 9-9, 8-8, A-7, 8-7, 7-6, and other sevens all fit the bill. There are lots of these hands. Even if my opponent doesn’t call the river every time with these hands, there are so many more of these hands than ones that beat me that the river bet will win more than half the time when called.

And the final ingredient to the value bet. I got caught in a big bluff already, and by bluff-raising my flop bet, my opponent showed that he doesn’t trust my bets. If I had caught him with one of the hands I listed above that I beat, I thought there was a good chance he would call.

He did call. He didn’t even think about it long which makes me wish I’d bet bigger. ♠

Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.