The Four Major Considerations For River Value Betting

As we head into the river, there is only one street of betting left. The pot is the biggest on average going into this street, and our remaining stacks are the smallest on average. We also have the most information going into the river than we do in any other point in the hand because we know what all of the community cards are going to be and because the strength of our opponents' hands are more easily known because we've seen them play most of the hand out.

Despite the abundance of information, the massive size of the pot makes it easy to make mistakes on the river, especially when deciding if you should value bet or not. Use the following guidelines to decide if a big river value bet is going to be profitable:

• To make money with a value bet, you want to make it to the showdown with the best hand most of the time. Therefore, you should only bet if you're going to be ahead on average when your opponent calls.
• If your opponent likes to bet a lot as a bluff when checked to on later streets, you should check to him with some of your medium strength holdings that you aren't sure if you should value bet or not. This way you can check and then call to pick off his bluffs.
• If your opponent likes to raise late street bets as a bluff then you have to value bet less often if you plan on folding to his raise.
• When you have an exceptionally strong hand, you should often go ahead and bet instead of trying for a check/raise if you think your opponent will call a bet with more hands than he will bet when checked to.

Being better at river value betting than your opponents will give you a definite edge when it comes time to play those big pots that have lots of betting and raising on all of the betting streets.

5 Preflop Tips to Maximize Profit Potential

When playing no-limit Texas Holdem, the first street of betting sets up three more streets of betting with a quickly-increasing pot size. In order to start the hand off right, you need to maximize your profit potential on the preflop street of betting. The following are 5 poker strategy tips that will set up bread and butter situations to help you drag huge pots:

Tip 1: Stay tight in early position.

When you act first in poker, you are at a huge disadvantage because everyone gets to see what you do before they have to act. Because of this, semi-strong hands like ATs or AJo will often lose money in early position. Gain the edge over the competition by playing only big pairs and strong unpaired hands in early position.

Tip 2: Steal the blinds often when it folds to you in late position.

With only a few people left to act preflop, the chance that someone has a hand that they’ll want to play is slim. Even if you have some trashy-looking suited cards, they will often be worth a small raise if it folds to you on the button since you’ll win the blinds a lot, and if you do get called you’ll get to act last for the rest of the hand, evening the playing field if they have a stronger hand than you.

Tip 3: Reraise weak players on a bluff with Ace-rag suited.

When you hold an Ace in your hand, the chance that your opponent holds a premium hand like AA or AK decreases. Weak players don’t like to continue against reraises preflop without a super strong hand, so you can make them fold the vast majority of the time, making a nice profit. Even if they do call, you have a chance of hitting an Ace on the flop against their KK or QQ or of flopping the nut flush draw no matter what they have.

Tip 4: Keep the pot small with medium and low suited connectors.

While you’d like to see a flop with hands like 65s or 44, you don’t want the pot to be very large at all going into the flop. The reason for this is twofold: first, you’d like to put in the minimum preflop to try to make your hand or hit a good draw, and second, you want there to be more money in your opponents stacks to win the times you hit your hand.

Tip 5: Flat call raises preflop sometimes if there is a maniac left to act after you.

Maniac players do a lot of betting and raising preflop, and it’s very easy to trap them into putting a lot of money in the middle when you have the best hand. So when you’re dealt that AA and there’s a raise before you, you should just call sometimes if there is a super loose-aggressive player who still has to act. This way he reraises, then you reraise him and the pot will be so big he will not want to fold whatever trash he has.

All of these tips are based on solid principles which allow you to make the most of every situation, which is the key to taking in lots of big pots in no-limit poker.