River hunting

[peterbirks]

As I wrote a while ago, I've been looking hard at my play on the river. Here's an example this morning where I think that a bet is plus EV, but many players (including myself in the past) might check.

$100 USD NL Texas Hold'em – Sunday morning, Party Poker
Table Table 127224 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 4: Blue7Summer ( $106.83 USD )
Seat 3: Hero ( $104.43 USD )
Seat 7: Its_Gooood ( $36.69 USD )
Seat 1: ToxicFish123 ( $26.43 USD )
Seat 8: badfish52 ( $100 USD )
Seat 5: itteronja ( $140.61 USD )
Seat 6: klemy666 ( $11.80 USD )
Seat 2: physiorules ( $33 USD )
Seat 10: po1ntblank ( $19.22 USD )
Seat 9: Villain ( $107.90 USD ) (66%/8% Agg factor 0.8)

Villain posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
po1ntblank posts big blind [$1 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [ 8♠ 8♣; ]

ToxicFish123 folds
physiorules folds
Hero raises [$3 USD]
Blue7Summer folds
itteronja folds
klemy666 folds
Its_Gooood folds
badfish52 folds
Villain calls [$2.50 USD]
po1ntblank folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 2♠, 6♡; 4◊; ]

Villain checks
Hero bets [$5 USD]
Villain calls [$5 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9◊; ]

Villain checks
Hero bets [$16 USD]
Villain calls [$16 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 9♡; ]

Villain checks

It's tempting to check behind here, but opponent looks loose-passive, and he's just won a bit of money. His stats make a check-raise on the river unlikely. If one comes, I probably fold anything much more than a mini-reraise. But I really think he's on something like 77 or A6, something like that.

Hero bets [$15 USD]
Villain calls [$15 USD]
Hero shows [ 8♠, 8♣; ]two pairs, Nines and Eights.
Villain doesn't show [ 5♠, 6◊; ]two pairs, Nines and Sixes.

Woo hoo.

Hero wins $76 USD from the main pot with two pairs, Nines and Eights.

These really are the hands where you have to squeeze out the extra value. No-one throws money at you any more (well, not often), so just one of these hands every couple of hours (with, say, an EV of three or four dollars) is good both for overall profit and for metagame purposes, because you have shown that you can bet on the river for value, as well as with v strong hands and v weak ones.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

If villain bet pot on the river, what are your thoughts?
Ben
Liverpool

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all, I would have been very surprised, because it's hard to put him on a hand where this betting sequence of his makes sense. These kind of players rarely put in some kind of pot bet for value on the river (and what kind of "value" could that be, given the river card? I suppose that something like 96 suited makes a warped kind of sense, as does 53 suited (although in the latter case he has played it badly).

If he puts in a pot bet I think I have to take the line that, somewhere in the hand he has made a poor decision (or a good one that doesn't fit in with his normal style!), but that does not mean that I am winning at the moment. Am I getting odds to call? Probably not. I reckon I'm no more than 10%. So I'd fold.

This kind of "donk lead" on the river isn't unheard of, but it tends not to come from players like this, tends not to follow pot size bets on the turn, and tends to come when a danger card hits. In this instance, a 9 isn't a danger card in my view. It's nearer a brick.

PJ