How to Value Bet Your Opponents

Value betting is the art of betting on the river and opponent’s then calling when they will lose the hand. This is the direct opposite to bluffing on the river where you want your opponent to fold. River bets are either a bluff or value bet as the strength of your hand is known and by the time you get to the river you should have a strong inkling whether you are behind or could be beating what you estimate your opponent holds. Value betting success can have a big impact on your poker profit therefore improving how you value bet can bring about an immediately and massive improvement to your poker game.

To make a value bet you must have a strong hand as you are making a bet you wish your opponent to call. You need to have a pretty good indication that your opponent will interpret your bet the way you want them to and then call. The perfect value bet would be to bet the most that they will call but not enough so they fold. Sometimes an opponent would call any bet thanks to the strength of their own hand; part of the skill of value betting is working out how the opponent will interpret the bet and how they will respond.

Players like Tom “Durrrr” Dwan make large river bets sometimes over betting the pot. This looks weak because it is exactly what they would do if they were bluffing. An aggressive player like Tom will have bet throughout the hand and created a large pot. By aggressively firing at the river he will scare opponents off the hand a lot of the time and when called be holding a hand a lot of the time too. Overall this is a winning move for him. When he is called and is beat there will be many other occasions where he has bluffed opponents from hands to make up for that one loss.

Large over betting as a value bet forms part of an aggressive strategy. You need plenty of heart to make these bets as you need to balance the strategy by doing this with nothing too and that is risky. If you think your opponents will pay you off and are holding a strong hand (preferably where you are holding the nuts) you can make a big bet. Be careful though because if this bet is too strong your opponent may be forced to fold. You cannot afford to only get called on these types of bets when you are beaten as that would be unprofitable.

Small value bets is like giving a player just enough rope to hang themselves. They may know they are behind but because they are getting, for example, three to one odds on the pot they decide to call because it looks like a good value move. Small bets are usually half the pot or less and the strategy is to squeeze as much as you can from the player when you believe a larger bet would result in your opponent folding. For example, if you have a hidden flush your opponent probably has top or two pair to have remained in the hand through the flop, turn and now the river. A big bet is good for you but is unlikely to be called. A smaller bet may entice a call especially if they have two pair. The small value bet needs to be just enough to get a call but not enough to make folding look a better move.

Value betting is very important to winning poker. You want your value bets to be called and to look like bluffs, so consider your bluffing technique and make the two similar in appearance. These marginal calls can turn a break even player into a winning player and rescue a losing player from losses. It is a vital concept in playing poker that you need to study and master.

By Malcolm Clarke

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