Value Betting the River HU on a 4.5BB pot.

[DavidC]

You'd be risking 1 BB to win 0.5BB, because of the rake (party raking system).

To make this bet profitable:
How good does your hand have to be?
How bad does your opponent have to be?
How friendly does the board have to be?

[Shillx]

[ QUOTE ]
You'd be risking 1 BB to win 0.5BB, because of the rake (party raking system).

To make this bet profitable:
How good does your hand have to be?
How bad does your opponent have to be?
How friendly does the board have to be?

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? You are risking 1 BB to win 4.5 BB. Once the money goes into the pot, it belongs to the pot and not the person who put it there.

Brad

Nevermind, I see what you are getting at. You would have to have a better hand then normal. Also notice that you would have to have a better hand then normal to call a bet with because the pot is laying 5:1 and not 5.5:1. You can exploit this by value betting less in 1st position with hopes that the villian will value bet a weaker hand. The problem is that the typical player doesn't value bet enough so his bets on the end will either be a bluff or a better then average hand that he is betting for value. If the villian will only bet his best 33% on the river (this is close to what a bad player will do), then it is correct to use the same betting strategy. If he will bet his best 50% (rare) then you are better of letting him make an incorrect value bet.

Brad

[itsmesteve]

"it depends!"
i think an overwhelming yes to any one question makes it ok, but that's just a gut reaction off the top of my head type of response. its really tough to answer any of the questions without knowing the answer to the others (or @ least one).
sorry to not answer the question, maybe i'll take another shot later. . . .

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
Huh? You are risking 1 BB to win 4.5 BB. Once the money goes into the pot, it belongs to the pot and not the person who put it there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not talking about calling. I'm talking about betting.

You're betting to win the call, since you have a legitimate hand. As you know, ordinarily on a river call you're calling to win pot.

The only time you're betting to win the whole pot is if you're trying to bluff a better hand out of the pot.

You could even be betting for both purposes: This is best in multiway rivers with the good opponent to your direct left, a scary river card, and bad opponents to the left of the good opponent, AFAIK.

-----

Regarding a better hand than normal to bet: it would have to be twice as good, right?

Regarding a better hand than normal to call, it would have to be ~10% better, right?

The rest of what you said makes perfect sense.

[DavidC]

Brad made a good point here:

The less likely your opponent is to bet with a worse hand (the worse he is), the more you have to bet this river.

You just have to make sure that you're hand is quite a bit better than a hand that you would normally value bet with.

How good, I don't know, but of course, how good your hand is depends largely on the board and the action: so the board question can be eliminated.

Thanks to both respondents.

--Dave.

[Gravy (Gravy Smoothie)]

This question is about as vague as "when should I fold AA postflop?"

[DavidC]

Man, you've been going over and over this for two hours (since I posted the message) and gave up on it already? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

That the problem with you poobah wannabes, you've got no love of the game. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

-----

In all fairness, it is a vague question though.

Shill took a run at it, and pointed me in the right direction.

The answer is "You should bet with hands that are going to win twice as often as when the rake isn't involved."

So you want the board to be friendlier, or your hand to be better, or your opponents looser, than normal.

How does this apply to a regular old hand...

I'd say that if it's a pretty ragged board, and you're holding tptk, since two pair is going to be very unlikely, then this is the perfect time to do it, whereas if the rake wasn't involved, you'd value bet on a slightly more co-ordinated board.

Things like definitely bet two pair for value, but don't necessarily bet middle pair top kicker for value on a ragged board (which you might do otherwise).

That depends on what the middle pair is too... it it's kj2, then you're probably good, but if it's k82, then you may lose to 99/tt often enough to make the call no longer worthwhile due to rake, even though it was a +EV valuebet beforehand.

Not sure exactly, I was wondering if anyone had every thought of this before.

Take it easy,
Dave.