Value-Betting for Beginners

To value-bet is to make a bet after the flop with the hope of getting called. Knowing when to make a value bet (and how much to bet) is a necessary skill for a winning player to acquire and cultivate. As you may know, most bet sizes are determined as a percentage of the pot. (For example, I typically make a bet in the amount of about 70% of the pot.) As the pot grows, the size of the bet necessarily grows. As such, the decisions that you make on later streets (the turn and the river) will involve bigger amounts. Since all we care about is money, clearly these bets are very important to our bottom line.

For example, suppose you're in a hand that has involved some betting throughout. When the river falls, it gives you three of a kind (but also puts a third heart on the board). By now, the size of the pot is, say, $300. Your opponent checks to you. You are scared that your opponent has a flush, so you check behind. He shows you two pair. You win the hand, but by failing to make a value bet on the river, you've missed out on anywhere from $150 to $200 of your opponent's money. That may not seem like much to those of you working at Baker Botts or Google or whatever, but that's some real folding money to me.



Since value-betting is such an essential skill, it probably won't surprise you to learn that it is a very nuanced, intricate decision. Obviously, if you have an unbeatable hand, you're going to be betting, but what if your hand is a marginal one? That is, your hand is probably better than your opponent's but if your opponent raised your bet, you'd have to fold. Should you still bet? This situation is dependent on the type of opponent you're facing. If your opponent is very passive, he's easier to value-bet because you don't have to fear being check-raised. Inversely, you have to be wary of an aggressive opponent--he's liable to raise you (either for value or to bluff you off a marginal hand). Considerations like this one are beyond the scope of this introductory post--I just want to demonstrate some of the intricacies involved.

In determining whether to value bet, you simply must put your opponent on a range of hands. I've seen beginners go through a process similar to this: "Well, I have two pair. That's okay, I guess, but it's worse than a straight flush, quads, a full house, a flush, a straight, or three-of-a-kind. I guess it's not a very good hand." The beginner fallaciously believes that his hand has an absolute value. This is wrong. The only value that your hand has is its value relative to your opponent's hand. You can lose pots with full houses and you can win 'em with Ace-high.

**As your hand only has relative value, you need to determine your opponent's hand so you can decide just how relatively valuable your hand actually is.** Here is a fairly routine example of this process. As the focus of this post is the value-bet on the river, I will be eliding over the play on the other streets.


Poker Stars $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

Hero (CO): $410.60
BTN: $454.15
SB: $1056.50
BB (slightly loose, definitely passive): $416.00
UTG: $469.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with A 8
1 fold, Hero raises to $12, 2 folds, BB raises to $24, Hero calls $12


We've been playing this guy for about an hour and we haven't seen him 3bet (a/k/a "reraise") before the flop. Thus, we can assign him a pretty reliable range of JJ+, AK. So, we're clearly behind but we have "implied odds" to justify our call. Basically, our thinking is this: "hey, this guy has a hand he's in love with. If I can catch a flop and crack his big pair, I can probably take him for a decent-sized pot. If I airball the flop, I merely lose a small pot and no harm is done. My hand--a suited ace--lends itself to big flops, so let's invest this $12 and try to catch gin."


Flop: ($50.00) 5 5 9 (2 players)
BB bets $20, Hero calls $20

Great flop for us. We could throw in a raise but we have very little fold equity because we're pretty sure he has a big pair and fish hate folding big pairs (justifiably so). Let's keep the pot small until we're winning.

Turn: ($90.00) T (2 players)
BB bets $32, Hero raises to $72, BB calls $40

Boom. We have our flush and if our range is accurate, we know we're ahead. We could get cute and simply call the turn bet, but we want to build the pot while our opponent still likes his hand. If we smooth-call and a fourth spade comes on the river, that could freeze our man and we'd be left with winning a small pot. We do not want to win a small pot, especially in this situation where we called the preflop 3bet knowing we were behind for the express purpose of flopping big and winning a big pot.

When he calls our raise, we can rule AK out of his range (unless he has the king of spades, perhaps). So, now we're putting him on JJ+. Yes, I suppose he could have TT but that's quite unlikely considering he didn't reraise us on the turn.

River: ($234.00) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $40, BB calls $40

Any fear of TT (or 99, I suppose) evaporated when he checked the river. Now we know exactly where we are: we have a flush and he has an overpair to the board. If we were beginners, we might be tempted to think to ourselves, "Shoot, now any 9 or any 5 beats us. There's so many full houses out there that maybe we should be careful and just check behind." Luckily, we're thinking players who realize that although the board looks scary for someone with a flush, it is nearly impossible for our opponent to have a better hand. We have determined (approximately) what our opponent's hand is, and now we know that relative to his hand, our hand is valuable. Also, we know from observing our opponent that he's fairly passive and we thus don't have to fear a check-raise from him that would probably force us to fold.

So, we've done all the hard work--now it's just a question of extracting value. Here we only bet $40--we probably could have gone as high as $60, honestly. (We don't need to talk about bet sizing today..we've enough on our plate as it is.)

Final Pot: $314.00
Hero shows A 8 (a flush, Ace high)
BB mucks Q Q
Hero wins $312.00
(Rake: $2.00)





ez game.