Value Betting (Day 7 Course Discussion)

Value Betting is how you win at poker.

If you have not yet read Day 7 and watched the video for Day 7 - take a few minutes now to do that and then come back here to discuss it:

Value Betting

Collin explains what it means to make a value bet and how important it is. Discuss value betting in this thread and ask Collin and Katie questions about it.

For bigger games ($20+ MTT's for me presently) for value betting, not only do I consider the card ranges held by those still in the hand I ALSO consider the card ranges mucked by those NOT in the hand. Here is where I would access my player notes and it harks back to an earlier post where I said I would fold AA or go all-in with essentially junk near the bubble.
Checking the TK (or similar) with 2 pair showing is something I will implement more often. I had usually bet out an amount that would represent a full house to make the other person fold even if they had the Ace.
Considering the KQ "thin value" bet I would have checked it instead - if the other person makes a small bet I would then call it...a larger one (relative to my profile of this player) would probably cause me to fold. I prefer leaving the play making to my opponent so that if the cards are shown I can salt this information away for future reference..win/lose/draw.

It was a good start: imagine teaching a little kindergarten child what you do, well you can be arrested
Very good the course especially for those who are starting now, the concepts very well explained! Congratulations! I'm not participating much in this part because I have studied these concepts a lot but I am watching the videos and reading the course and looking forward to starting the next week!

example hand 1

Very good explanation I just have a doubt I sometimes hide the strength of my hand by making these sizes by calling, when I know I'm ahead then on the river I make a very low low bet, if the villain reraises I will allin. Would it also be okay to explore this issue with regular, safe players?

Another question about hand 2

the check on the turn does not seem to me a good move over the long term but in this hand in particular I extracted more than I would extract if I bet the turn ... so far I understand, my doubt is if the villain had flush nuts he would not check on the turn? and would the hero's bet on the river get allin back pay?

I had a question about value betting on the river. I play mostly small stakes and people mostly call bets. At the same time, they’ll fold to any bet above pot size so not sure where the balance lies.

What do you think is the right size bet for a river value bet? I usually do half pot and people call, but not sure if there’s further research on this.

I need to study Days #6 and #7 much more.

The concepts of proper starting hand selection and value betting are crucial. And it applies to cash games too. It's good that the theory in this course comes together with good real-hand examples. The final KQo hand was the most interesting for me.

I Live Poker said:

Very good explanation I just have a doubt I sometimes hide the strength of my hand by making these sizes by calling, when I know I'm ahead then on the river I make a very low low bet, if the villain reraises I will allin. Would it also be okay to explore this issue with regular, safe players?

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It’s totally good to explore explotive lines versus opponents that you don’t need to be as concerned about constantly balancing your ranges against (ie when we’re up against anyone besides solid good regs that also identify us as such). We want to be careful though that I’m doing that we aren’t giving our opponents a lot of opportunities to get to showdown cheaply when we have big hands, as we’ll make a lot more on average by betting big the majority of the time that we have huge holdings.

I Live Poker said:

Another question about hand 2

the check on the turn does not seem to me a good move over the long term but in this hand in particular I extracted more than I would extract if I bet the turn ... so far I understand, my doubt is if the villain had flush nuts he would not check on the turn? and would the hero's bet on the river get allin back pay?

Click to expand...

I believe you are referring to the KQ hand but please correct me if I’m wrong (just please give me a time stamp to where you’re referring if possible so that I can best help)!

As Collin says in the video, betting out on the turn would be a totally reasonable thing to do. In game, I think that’s the way I personally would tend to play this hand. And yes, it’s unlikely that villain would check with the flush on the turn. Though there are hands that beat us on the river (such as JT, better two pair, a pretty darn unlikely flush), the vast majority of the time that we get called, it is by a worse hand. The primary reason for that is that our hand is very underrepresented at the point given that the turn went check/check, so it’s a very good time to try to get maximum value on the river

Some people make the mistake of chet when they hit the board, I will never make this move, because I know how rare it is for me to hit the board.

natelearnspoker said:

I had a question about value betting on the river. I play mostly small stakes and people mostly call bets. At the same time, they’ll fold to any bet above pot size so not sure where the balance lies.

What do you think is the right size bet for a river value bet? I usually do half pot and people call, but not sure if there’s further research on this.

Click to expand...

In general, the size of your value bet should be most dictated by how much value you’re looking to reasonably get from your hand. As you point out, you’ll generally need to adjust this based on making the most from your opponents. Without those adjustments, you’d always bet the max with the nuts, and only a little with a weaker made hand like top pair.

Of course if you were to follow that strategy to a tee, it would become very obvious to your opponents rather quickly! This is a tough question to answer as it has a tremendous number of variables, but I like your general solution of starting with half pot size and adjusting from there while of course considering how much balance you need to have depending on the situation.

For me the biggest difficulty and at the same time is the best characteristic of good players is to know the probability about ranges and hits in the pre-flop, flop, river and turn so that when a player tries to represent with a raise much higher than acted during the play let's not fold too much.

I can even perform the over limp but when the flop comes my attitude is very compromised exactly by players representing a move because (I don't know if this is called bad luck) but many times the players represent and there is something and precisely these from those I did not expect nothing for being aggressive.

I believe that with future classes I can make better notes during tournaments and know how to better analyze the behavior of villains.

Good Lucks e Lets movie foward cguru:

I love the way you lay down the concepts, great tutoring!
The last hand was ectremely well played by the villain, although if hero just checked the river he would lose tons of value. The way it progressed he made the most of it, making his flopped monster to look like a river bluff.

Thanks for the resource... currently reading through the pdf "Become a winning poker player in 30 days". It has a lot of great concepts and explanations. Didn't even realize that this existed.

I agree value betting is a game changer... and if you do it right your profitability increases over the long haul. Most people don't understand when/how to value bet properly. I highly suggest you read Day 7 in the PDF.

Thanks Future and Jean, and nice work getting past day 7 already!

More great stuff, nothing much new in today's lesson for me, but still always good to review and revise.

The most interesting part today was the last example where the hero called the shove after the min value bet - where he didn't believe the shove bet. I guess he thought the betting patterns showed not much strength up until that point, so he walked into villain's trap. I've done that a few times myself so it was of particular interest. It is easy to always assume they are trying to bully bluff you on the river, especially if you know them to bluff in the past.

However, if you are risking the last chips in a tournament, it might be wise to remember that even regular bluffers, fish, and/or maniacs DO actually sometimes have the hand! That's the lesson I've learned

"combinatorics"? Is this a real word or are you making words up again? lmao!

It is a real word, we promise!

In a sentence it might be something like...


There are sixteen combinations of Ace-King and only 12 of Aces/Kings combined. So hand combinatorics tells us that AK is more likely than the high pairs.

Katie Dozier said:

I believe you are referring to the KQ hand but please correct me if I’m wrong (just please give me a time stamp to where you’re referring if possible so that I can best help)!

As Collin says in the video, betting out on the turn would be a totally reasonable thing to do. In game, I think that’s the way I personally would tend to play this hand. And yes, it’s unlikely that villain would check with the flush on the turn. Though there are hands that beat us on the river (such as JT, better two pair, a pretty darn unlikely flush), the vast majority of the time that we get called, it is by a worse hand. The primary reason for that is that our hand is very underrepresented at the point given that the turn went check/check, so it’s a very good time to try to get maximum value on the river

Click to expand...

Thank you very much!
Perfect

In the value bet I saw how important it is to give value to your hand in relation to your opponent, pretending to have the best hand, or that is what I understood from the lesson on day 7

Value betting is such a double edged sword especially in micro levels. 3 BB pre-flop raises rarely puts off any flop hunters, and one has to raise up to 7-9 BBs to decimate the competition. Even then many still hang on, and when the villain hits top pair on flop with his K3o he comes very determined to stay until showdown, eventually cracking my queens. In my opinion trying to milk value with high pocket pair is usually a bad idea in the micros, and what I've seen from online pros it's not that easy even in the higher stakes - the main thing is to keep a cool head with any cards you are holding.

You're definitely right Nafor that players can surprise you in the micros with what they're holding and have surprisingly strong hands, but trust me that value betting is still a super-important skill to beating these levels. Make the best hand and bet it -- that's a big part of winning poker at every level, particularly low stakes!

My biggest problem is when after what seems like normal betting on the flop and the turn, the villain bets the pot on the river. Nothing seemed to change with the river card. I have a hard time pulling the trigger with such a large bet and trying to figure out what he could possibly have.

Day 3 - Chapter 7
Hello fellow players,

Nice information in this chapter. I especially like the mental check, "which hand can villain have that would call me". Sometimes a value bet really in not worth it. The idea of knowing when to check on the river is so important, as those check shoves on the river are a nightmare - nothing I dislike more than that On, Oh moment!


Value betting is indeed an area that I have been focusing on. One street in particular that I have been trying to maximize is the turn, especially in situations where villain is making small bets on what I perceive to be a draw. Of late, I am betting for value there since most of the time villain folds on a blank and there is no chance of a call after the river.

What is your take on this approach?

I enjoyed this chapter - much reflection for me.

Very simple and easy to understand. Separately noted for myself.
If you think it’s likely you have the best hand, always consider value betting it.
A huge part of winning at poker is simply making the best hand and betting it.
In the last example from the video, an easy fold is on the river. Calling a villain's push on such a board with a second pair is a fee for curiosity.
This line is often used in the cache, sometimes met in tournaments and usually in 8 out of 10 cases show nut.
To know and apply in practice are two different things.
https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/324AzkTDE
https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/224Azl97r
https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/624Azlkpe
Make the best hand and bet it -- that's a big part of winning poker at every level, particularly low stakes!
This is a guide to action!