Obsession with value bets (Warning: Long)

[Rizen]

This is cut and pasted from my blog. I don't know if it will be helpful to anyone here, and I would certainly appreciate feedback on how to make it better, but one of my pet peeves lately has been how poorly people value bet. I have about 10-12 people I regularly review hand histories with as well, and IMO the most common problem I see with their play is poor betting. Anyways, here it is:

Let's face it, we as poker players are obsessed with the 'value bet'. Several of the most popular poker texts discuss value betting in detail, and during the WSOP and even some WPT broadcasts lately there has been a lot of talk of 'great value bets' going on. I really think us online poker players, as a community, tend to go a little overboard with the idea of what a value bet is and how to apply it properly though.

I'm going to take everyone back to Poker 101 here as it applies to betting. If you hold the absolute nuts in your hand, you would want to bet the absolute most into the pot that your opponent would call, and not one penny less. Conversely, if you're on a stone cold bluff you would want to be the absolute least you have to in order for your opponent to fold, and not one penny more. Now, obviously the amount of times a poker player has the absolute nuts or is on a stone cold bluff doesn't happen all that often, but we can apply this concept broadly by saying that there are times our hands are strong enough we WANT action, and there are times our hands are weak enough (either as a bluff, or just a generally weak hand) that we'd prefer not to have action.

Now, let's say that we call this point where the maximum amount your opponent will call is 'X'. Like anything else in poker, we will never be able to know exactly what X is for any given hand. But given that poker is a game of incomplete information, we can try and fill in some of the gaps with the information we know about the player and his actions so far in the hand. Is he a loose caller? Has he represented a strong or a weak hand? Is he on tilt? Plus many other questions that may impact how the player will respond to your bet. The problem I see many players (particularly online players) making at the tables though, is they take the value bet concept too far. They assume that in order to make a value bet, they must make a bet they feel will always be called, and thus they bet far too little in an attempt to extract more out of the pot.

A common example I see of this is when someone finally makes their drawing hand (let's say a flush or a straight in this case) and it's checked to them. They have position and obviously checking is not an option since giving a free showdown when you finally hit our hand would be a poker catastrophe. They get so afraid of not getting paid off with their great hand that they make a super small bet into a large pot so they'll be called. This is awful!! We all know (or should know) that great poker players separate themselves by getting maximum value out of their winning hands and losing as little as possible on their losing hands. 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. I mean if you bet 1200 into that same pot, and your opponent will call half as often, you make just as much money in the long run, and certainly if he's willing to call 600 in that pot he'd be willing to call 1200 at least half as much. Take that out further, and he might call 2500 1/3 of the time!

If you do the math (and I'll spare you that here), if your opponent will call 600 every time, 1200 half the time, and 2500 1/3 of the time, 2500 is by FAR the superior bet, as over the course of many hands it will bring you the most profit. I don't know about you, but I play poker for profit. You cannot be so afraid of your opponent folding that you refuse to extract maximum value out of a hand.

This doesn't apply just to the river either. You want to be getting maximum value (either by getting a weaker hand to call or a stronger hand to fold) on every street when you're doing the betting. If you take the easy way out and bet small with your good hands and big with your bluffs, I promise you you'll be watching from the rail much sooner than you expect. Think about your bet sizes and play strong poker, and I promise you your bottom line will thank you.

-Rizen

excellent post. I find myself pushing on the river quite often with a made hand and getting called by worse hands a very surprising amount of the time. Sometimes they're just bad players, other times good players will think I wouldn't bet that much if I had the hand I do and will call with a worse hand.

[IHateKeithSmart]

Nice post Rizen. I have huge problems with river value betting with a more marginal, but still made, hand (e.g. TPGK, bottom 2, etc.). Sometimes I can be hesitant to pull the trigger at all and just want a cheap showdown, when I know I should extract more on the end. I see monsters, etc. and think villain will make a huge cr on the end that I can't call (although they rarely do). River betting is definitely not my strong suit (not that I have one).

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
If you hold the absolute nuts in your hand, you would want to bet the absolute most into the pot that your opponent would possibly call, and not one penny less.

[/ QUOTE ]

this isn't really right. according to this, if there is a 50% chance villain will call 900 chips and a 99% chance he'll call 800, then i should bet 900 because my opponent could "possibly call."

your EV on a bet of size x is:

EV(bet x) = x * probability villain calls

(ignores c/r's). you want to find the value of x that maximizes EV. very different from betting the maximum that has some chance of being called.

[Pasterbator]

Thank you Rizen. This post really hit home. I tend to miss way too many value bets, and something just clicked when i read this. Excellent post.

PREPARE TO MAKE THE DECEMBER DIGEST.

- Jason

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you hold the absolute nuts in your hand, you would want to bet the absolute most into the pot that your opponent would possibly call, and not one penny less.

[/ QUOTE ]

this isn't really right. according to this, if there is a 50% chance villain will call 900 chips and a 99% chance he'll call 800, then i should bet 900 because my opponent could "possibly call."

your EV on a bet of size x is:

EV(bet x) = x * probability villain calls

(ignores c/r's). you want to find the value of x that maximizes EV. very different from betting the maximum that has some chance of being called.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the proofread, I need to remove the word possibly. The point of that whole paragraph there is to say 'if I had a telepathy, and knew with certainty that he would call exactly 900 chips but would fold to 901 (100% of the time) then I should be 900'. I stated the principle wrong and it can be confusing, thanks for pointing that out.

-Rizen

[jcm4ccc]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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."

[Roman]

I will try to sumarize your post in 1 sentance:
"You should try to maximize profits on your hands."

All of this strikes me as painfully obvious. When someone bets 600 into a 4000 pot, it is because they feel that this bet will maximize their profits. Most of the time they bet small amounts because they think the opponent has nothing and thats all he will pay off with A high or whatever. I doubt that reading this will help them as much as making better reads etc.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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."

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
I will try to sumarize your post in 1 sentance:
"You should try to maximize profits on your hands."

All of this strikes me as painfully obvious. When someone bets 600 into a 4000 pot, it is because they feel that this bet will maximize their profits. Most of the time they bet small amounts because they think the opponent has nothing and thats all he will pay off with A high or whatever. I doubt that reading this will help them as much as making better reads etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

The post was meant mainly for entertainment and self reflection purposes, not teaching purposes. I don't pretend to be a teacher or instructor. I am neither, and I don't think I would be good at either. I could sum up the entire game of poker to say:

"You should strive to make money"

and that doesn't mean we should throw out all poker texts does it?

I appreciate your feedback and I'm sorry you got nothing out of the post, but please don't over-generalize things.

-Rizen