River value betting: Limit vs. NL

[Reef]

I have been learning NL through a pro friend of mine. Preflop and flop is pretty much a formula. However, on the river, I am somewhat perplexed by the lack of river value betting with holdings such as top pair. This is vastly different to limit, which I am accustomed to. It seems to be tight-weak to me (but as a far superior NL player, he must be right)

Does anyone have explanations or thoughts?

[MrFeelNothin]

limit: you valuebet river with top pair, I CR, your move?

Nolimit: you valuebet river with top pair, I CR you all in, your move?


I might be seeing it simplistically, but when the pot is large you don't want to risk opening yourself up to a bluff and possibly losing the pot. Not to say that there isn't value-betting in NL, but one pair is not a hand you usually want to back your stack with, so you have to play more conservatively.

[Reef]

It's 3 handed, you're in the BB w/ Ax. Final board is TJQKx. 3 to a flush came on the turn. It was checked through both rounds. Your opponents are smart/tricky.

Now on the river, is this an NL value bet?

[jtr]

I think it's a value bet, and then a good fold if raised.

[barongreenback]

[ QUOTE ]
I have been learning NL through a pro friend of mine. Preflop and flop is pretty much a formula. However, on the river, I am somewhat perplexed by the lack of river value betting with holdings such as top pair. This is vastly different to limit, which I am accustomed to. It seems to be tight-weak to me (but as a far superior NL player, he must be right)

Does anyone have explanations or thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is your opponent going to call with a worse one pair?

[Yerma]

In LHE you can't bet enough on one street with top pair to make it so that someone with 2nd or 3rd pair won't call you down, especially heads-up.

So...in LHE, your best defense (a mix of offense and defense, really) is to pose him a mathematical question: "if I bet every street, is it worth it for you to call on the chance that I am bluffing or that you will hit your hand those times I am not bluffing?" This question is most effectively posed by betting every street including the river. If you don't bet every street often enough, your opponent will find it profitable to call you down on the calling side of the equation, while also posing you a tougher question than you posed him because he will bet all streets including the river (when he has the top pair) more often than you did.

In NLHE, you can pose the entire question in a single bet, rather than a multistreet bet like LHE. You can get his entire answer in a single call.

In LHE, the differential between your strategy with top pair and his strategy with top pair is a large part of what makes you a winning player over him. If you value bet more effectively (by also betting the river) than the other guy, you are holding over him. So you can measure the differential by the number of river bets that you win compared to the number of river bets he is winning from you when he has the top pair instead of you.

In NLHE, the differential between your strategy with top pair and his strategy with top pair doesn't have to do with "number of river bets". It has to do with the size of your value bets over time compared to the size of his value bets over time. If, on the other hand, you are a steamer, it will have to do with the number of stacks you are losing with top pair compared to the number of stacks he is losing when he value bets his top pair.

Whether or not you are a steamer, losing a stack or making a value bet isn't something that will often happen on the river. But in LHE, the central issue with top pair (heads-up) is what happens on the river.