Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (43 page)

You check both hands, with the intention of calling if your opponent bets. You can make a case for betting both of these hands, but assume we check for this example. The river is the 2
. With either hand, betting around 1/3 pot makes a lot of sense because your opponent is a good, thinking player. If you bet the 9-8 and your opponent calls or raises, you only lose a small amount while giving yourself decent odds to pick up the pot with a cheap bluff. If you bet the A-K and your opponent raises, you have an easy call, as your hand looks like a weak made hand and you are trying to find out where you are at. Sometimes your opponent will river a random good hand, but in this spot, if you were ahead on the flop you are almost always ahead on the river. By betting small on the river, you may also induce him to call with worse hands than if you made a standard 2/3-pot value-bet.

Betting small with both bluffs and strong hands is the only way that small bets on the river make much sense. You are balanced in this situation, which is a good thing. When calling a river raise in this spot, it is important to know you are playing an aggressive opponent who will attack weakness. Players who make blocking bets with weak made hands usually fail to see that a blocking bet looks weaker than a check to most good players. You should tend to raise when a weak player makes a blocking bet on the river, and to call with a wide range and fold your weakest hands if a good player makes such a bet. Once you see which hands each type of opponent shows up with, you will be better able to deal with their small river bets.

Bluffing on the River

Large, extravagant bluffs are almost always –EV in tournaments. You may consider a large bluff if you have an excellent read on your opponent, but even then, you have to worry that he has an equally good read on you. When I transitioned to live tournaments, I would often run a large river bluff only to find my opponent call with top pair. I asked a few of them why they called and their answer was usually the same. “I had top pair, I can’t fold that.” That pretty much sums up how most players think, and that is why I bet the river mostly for value. I occasionally hear my friends say something like, “I thought he had top pair, top kicker on the flop so I decided to bluff him.” This is one of the worst spots for a bluff. A weak player will call down. A good player will see through your creative line and will also call down. Bluffing in giant pots is usually bad.

If the pot is large by the time you get to the river, both players will have put in a decent number of chips. Say you raise to 3BBs out of your 150BB stack with A
-J
and the big blind calls. The flop is Q
-9
-6
. You make a standard continuation bet of 4BBs and your opponent calls. The turn is the K
.

Your opponent checks and you decide to bet 9BBs on the turn, hoping he will fold, but he calls. The river is the 2
, and your opponent checks. This is a terrible spot to bluff because if your opponent had something on the turn, he probably isn’t folding. He could have a flush draw, but then you still have the best hand. The only thing you may be able to bluff your opponent off of is a hand like Q-J or Q-10, and he’ll sometimes call even then. If instead of A-J you have J-8, you should just give up the river because most opponents will not fold. You might bet a small amount to push him off a busted flush draw that has you beat, but even that is pushing it. If an opponent tells you he has a hand by calling on the flop and turn, especially if you have any showdown value, you should check behind on the river.

You may occasionally have a weak made hand on the river and decide you need to turn it into a bluff. Say you raise A
-3
from middle position, the big blind calls and the flop comes J
-5
-3
. You bet and your opponent calls. The turn is the Q
. You could semi-bluff the turn, but your opponent probably has a jack and may or may not fold. Assume you decide to bet this time. Your opponent calls. The river is the K
. Your opponent is probably going to fold on this river unless he has K-Q, K-J or Q-10. There are also very few draws he could have on the flop, so he probably has a made hand. In this spot, assuming you are deep-stacked and bluffing the river won’t cost too much, you should fire a 2/3-pot bet, hoping to bluff him off a queen, or more likely, a jack. Bottom pair may appear to have some showdown value, but it is almost always behind on this board, making it a decent spot to bluff.