Value Betting Dilemma

by FTR Poker Admin | Jan 26, 2025 | Cash Game Strategies, No Limit Hold'em Poker Strategies

First, two hands….

$5/$10 No Limit Holdem

6 players

Stacks:

UTG fakker11 ($1594.00)

UTG+1 GIVEmeSOME99 ($815.00)

CO traheho ($1062.00)

BTN Bttech86 ($1000.00)

SB Hero ($1095.00)

BB zero2lose ($2772.75)

Pre-flop: ($15, 6 players) Hero is SB

4 folds, Hero raises to $40, zero2lose calls $30

Flop: ($80, 2 players)

Hero bets $60, zero2lose calls $60

Turn: ($200, 2 players)

Hero bets $160, zero2lose calls $160

River: ($520, 2 players)

Hero checks, zero2lose bets $435, Hero folds

$5/$10 No Limit Holdem

6 players

Stacks:

UTG MezmerizePLZ ($995.00)

UTG+1 Floyd1479 ($1012.00)

CO AndrewBoccia ($3129.70)

BTN nobbi745 ($408.00)

SB Hero ($1217.00)

BB jullle ($1803.80)

Pre-flop: ($15, 6 players) Hero is SB

MezmerizePLZ raises to $30, 2 folds, nobbi745 calls $30, Hero calls $25, 1 fold

Flop: ($100, 3 players)

Hero bets $70, MezmerizePLZ calls $70, 1 fold

Turn: ($240, 2 players)

Hero bets $160, MezmerizePLZ calls $160

River: ($560, 2 players)

Hero checks, MezmerizePLZ checks

Hero shows:

Hero wins $557 ( won +$297 )

MezmerizePLZ lost -$260.00

nobbi745 lost -$30.00

These hands have a few things in common:

1. I have a good made hand.

2. I’m out of position.

3. The board has coordinated itself in such a way where I have the worst hand a very significant percentage of the time.

4. My image is kinda weak. By weak I mean I don’t really have a developed aggressive image, and they probably expect me to be playing pretty straightforward in these spots. No history of note.

5. Villain is a tough and solid reg.

6. They are spots where (i think) its a decision between betting or check/folding. I didn’t see c/c as being an option in either.

I have shown these hands to several people who’s opinions I much respect, and they have said that they are both easy bets. But I can’t understand why.

I feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of poker, but one thing that I have never fully got was thin valuebetting. Especially thin value betting vs good players when there’s not a ton of spewy history. It seems to me like when I bet AK in the first hand, its like I’m basically just praying that he makes a big mistake vs my range and calls with worse, and if he doesn’t, then guess what I just made a spewy bet. I think this is a legitimate worry, because we are dealing with a player I believe is playing pretty damn well, so odds are, he figures to play pretty well to my bet.

But the flip side of the dilemma is that if I don’t bet in these spots, they don’t even get the opportunity to make a mistake to begin with.

Thoughts?

Renton’s Reply

Ok, this is kinda frustrating. It’s not at all helpful when you simply look at these hands and say "thats an easy value bet." Can you explain precisely why its an easy value bet?

And no, "he calls with worse," and "you usually have the best hand" are hardly acceptable reasons.

For example, in the AK hand. Yes if you stoved my hand vs his range on the river there, I’d have the highest equity. Its probably like a 60-40 or a 65-35 in my favor. I don’t see how this is at all relevant. What is important is how AK fares vs his calling range, and I honestly felt, regardless of how often i have the best hand getting to the river, that this figure was less than 50/50.

Ok I just stoved AK vs his range on the river.

Board: Ah 6c 9s 5d Th

Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied

Hand 0: 41.935% 41.94% 00.00% 26 0.00 { 66, AJs-A2s, 96s, 87s, 65s, AQo-ATo, A8o-A6o }

Hand 1: 58.065% 58.06% 00.00% 36 0.00 { AdKd }

I gave him all the AJ combos, 1/4 of the A9 combos, All Axo combos A6 and up (this might have been erroneous, some ppl defend all Ax’s, but i decided that statistically he should be 3-betting or folding a significant percentage of them), 3/4 of AQ combos since he 3-bet gets it in a sometimes, and one of the sets since i believe he slowplays sets a non zero frequency.

So I win 8 cents on the dollar if he calls with his entire range which obv he doesn’t since he’s not a massive station.

Is there something wrong with my range or with my expectations of him?

Also fwiw, since the second one is probably somewhat easier valuebet than the first one, pretend i have AJ in that hand. Would that be a bet?

Sauce123’s Reply

Renton – First hand bet like 110 bucks if you want, but make sure he ends up calling and feeling owned and not like ur a passive fish he can shit all over.

Note: If he starts bluffjamming rivers that’s just another game of rock paper scissors you can win. Don’t be handcuffed by traditional thinking, solid players turn out to play poorly when you test them and trick them and tilt them and exploit them.

Hand 2 is a much clearer value bet because ur leading range is more nebulous to mezz. He can either look you up REALLY light or fold, but think of board texture and how extremely rarely he has a hand better than yours: and then think of the tiny number of combo draws which get to the river and have you beat. Which leads me to my 2nd reason why you should make "thin" value bets. There’s a lot of spots in aggressive high stakes poker games where a certain line basically screams that your opponent has mid level nonsense to absolute dogshit. You can reverse read hands and realized the 34th nuts is actually the 1st nuts given certain action barring some insane level your opponent is pulling which hes not. this is one of those spots, so bet!