[Rizen]

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Clearly if you're betting some absurd amount like 600 chips into a 4000 pot when you make your hand on the river, you're leaving money on the table.

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This is not necessarily true. Everything is situational dependent. Sometimes it is so obvious by the betting patterns that someone is working on a flush. Nobody is fooled, nobody is trying to fool anybody. Then the flush card hits. Sometimes a min-bet is all you're going to get paid off--a bet twice the size could actually cause some pain, and may get folded way more often than a min-bet. That is why it is usually a mistake to consider implied odds when going for a flush.

Today I had a situation where the BB was 100, and I was dealt AQ in EP. I raise to 300. Only the BB calls. Then the flop comes--AAQ. Whoops. How am I going to get anything for this--as Harrington says, I've sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

There were 2 flush cards on the board. So I checked the flop and checked the turn, hoping that the third flush card would hit and possibly make his hand. The river comes without the flush card. BB checks again. I bet 100. He calls with King high, and I get an extra 100 chips. That was all I was going to get. If I raised to 200, I think he folds probably 75-80% of the time, given his range. The only way he was going to call a substantial bet was if he had the other Ace, and given that three were already accounted for and he was in the BB, that seemed a very remote possibility (especially since he had checked the hand 3 times).

Now let's say that UTG limped or the button called and the exact same thing happened. I might make a weak bet on the flop, hoping that he had the other ace (hoping and praying that he has AK or AJ). Or I might wait until the turn.

The main difficulty I have with value bets, I think, is being afraid to bet the river when it's checked to me for fear of being trapped. But when I do decide to make a value bet on the river, I'm not looking to get paid off 100% of the time. I make a bet based on the cards that I think he has and what I think he would be willing to pay. Sometimes that is an absurdly small number, and on occasion it's more than the pot.

I think your article is good, but I don't think you need to make blanket statements like "betting 600 into a 4000 pot is absurd."

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The situation you describe is slow-playing/trapping for the most part, the only part of the situation where you actually value bet is the river. While it is certain that with his particular holding (in this case King high) you weren't going to get more, you could certainly get more on average from his RANGE of holdings in this particular case.

I won't hijack the thread to address your hand in particular, but I will say that I do agree with one point you have. Blanket statements don't belong in poker, so using 'absurd' may have been strong. I also would agree that there are times (however rare) when betting 600 into a 4000 pot may be correct. However, I sincerely believe that underbetting for value is seriously overused by poker players, and they try and pass off their plays in the name of 'value betting', and that was the pet peeve that I was trying to address with this post. I also believe that if you're a learning or beginning player, if you never bet 600 into a 4000 pot (or some similar underbetting) that you'd probably be better off in the long run.

-Rizen