Value Betting

I always hear people talking about value betting people but i dont understand what this really is. What percent of the pot do you bet and is the reason you value bet to make your oppenent get pot odds so they will call and not fold so you make more money?

A value bet is a bet that u think vilian will call with a inferior hand.
If u have AA and the flop comes down AAK and u know vilian will call an all-in thats a value bet.
Its not the size of the bet that decites if its a value bet its the fact that vilian calls with a worse hand that makes it a value bet.

A bet that won't scare away the other players, simply put. Those small bets on the river are scarey to me, but even though I know they are probably strong, the price is to good to fold. What sucks is when you make a value bet and they call with a strong hand and you know you could have gotten more out of them.

Value betting can be useful to get value for a big hand that if you bet earlier in the hand, everyone else would fold. For instance, lets say you have an ace in the pocket and the flop comes AAA. If you raise on the flop, theres a good chance that everyone else will fold because obviously, you have the ace so they dont... You might get a call if someone has a big pocket pair - unless the table knows you've been playing tight and only playing ace king and similar hands, in which case they might put you on the ace. Either way, with that flop, if the hand plays out with everyone checking, then you can bet on the river, and it would look like you are trying to steal the pot and so you might get called by someone with a mediocre hand, that you of course with your quads can beat.

I think that a value bet depends on how many double cheesburgers you can get. If you wager 10 bucks and don't get called.. that's a zero double cheeburger wager. Whereas, if you bet 5 bucks and the villian calls... that's 5 double cheese or 4 and a curly fry. You feel me?

A Value bet, is a bet which you make (Usually on the river) which is small enough that the opponent will call most of the time, but big enough to extract some more value out of your made hand. It is usually 1/2-3/4 of the pot.

Above answers are all correct:

Here's what a value bet is not: A pot sized bet on the river when you have been betting just 2 times the big blind and just geting smooth called through the flop and turn, and you know you've prolly got the pot. You lessen the likelihood of a call by that, and hence lost value.

A value bet is something you do, when you've been keeping an inferior hand in the pot, or you've hit a huge hand, and suspect your opponent has not. Your goal is to squeeze just a few more chips outta your opponent by making the price right for him to see your cards with his measly mid-pair.

IN addition, Value betting can be used as a tactic for your overall strategy: When you want the table to see your strong hand after alot of uncalled aggressive bets in hands prior.

Nothng is worse than hitting your straight on the turn and having your weak opponent fold on the turn because you overbet. A value bet makes your striong hand look weak and enables you to get some money from the pot, instead of a fold.

value betting is betting a small enough bet that gives your opponents enough pot odds to call. Often this is when you have the hand locked up.

bulldog2782 said:

I always hear people talking about value betting people but i dont understand what this really is. What percent of the pot do you bet and is the reason you value bet to make your oppenent get pot odds so they will call and not fold so you make more money?

Click to expand...

Just look at a "value bet" as the opposite of a bluff. A bluff is a bet that will probably lose if called and a value bet is one that will probably win if called.

Bet size doesn't make or break a value bet. You can bet 10x the pot with AA pre-flop or bet the minimum on the river with a Royal. In both instances you are betting for value.

Value betting has nothing to do with bet size, or board texture, or anything like that. It's simply betting because you think it is likely you have the best hand. If you do think it probable you have the best hand, you sell it for what it's worth. If you thought villain will call an all in, you might do that, if you think he'll only call a 1/5 pot bet, then that's what you do. They're both value bets, just different sizes of them.

A lot of people don't understand how to size bets either because they're so results oriented. Don't fall into this trap. People don't push the nuts or hands close to the nuts hard enough often enough. They get so focused on what happens right now, and not what will happen over thousands of trials. Here's what I mean, say the river's out, you have the nuts. You have effective stacks left of 130bb's heads up and you're first to act.

You raised preflop to 3bb's and got one call. Bet 4bb on flop, called. Bet 1/2 pot on turn, called. The pot is now 28bb's on the river.

You reason that if you shove, villain will only call 15% of the time, folding a full 85%.
If you bet pot, villain will call 65% fold 35%
If you bet =<1/2 pot, villain will call 90% fold 10%

Which bet is most profitable?
Shoving here, even though it's hardly ever called is the best play!

EV=(%call)*(Size bet)

Shove = (.15) * (130) = 19.5bb's
Psb = (.65) * (28) = 18.2bb's
1/2 psb=(.90) * (14) = 12.6bb's

The main thing I want you to see is that these are ALL value bets. I'm not trying to tell you shove every river, but that a shove is just as much a value bet as a 1/2 pot bet, with a specific value that you can roughly determine.