Playing The River

The fifth and final community card – the river – is perhaps the most important part of a no-limit Hold’em hand, and playing it well can make the difference between a nice win and a nasty loss. Thankfully, by the time the river arrives, you’ve had three betting rounds in which to gain clues about your opponents’ holdings. However, many players don’t know how to ?use this information to their advantage. In this article I’m going to show you how to take your decisions on the river to a higher level and avoid some of the most common mistakes.

Betting And Raising

Deciding whether to bet on the river is actually quite simple. If you bet, you want one of two things to happen – either your opponent calls with a worse hand, or they fold a better hand. In both cases, you gain more value than if you had simply checked.

For example, let’s say you have A-K and the board is A-K-8-5-3. Here, you would look to make a value bet and hope your opponent calls with a worse hand, like A-8, A-Q or K-J. If, on the other hand, you had 7-2 and had no hope of winning the hand by checking you might make a bet to bluff and hope that your opponent folded a better hand.

With both 7-2 and A-K on the A-K-8-5-3 board there’s a clear purpose to your bet. With the A-K you’re trying to make a bit of extra money, and with the 7-2 you’re trying to get your opponent to relinquish a hand so that you win a pot you would otherwise lose. Every bet you make on the river should have a purpose, and if you can’t achieve one of these two goals, you shouldn’t bet at all.

River Mistakes

A common river mistake occurs like this: you raise from middle position with A-T, and only the button calls. The flop comes Q-T-9, you bet, and are called. The turn is a two. You check and your opponent bets. You call and the river is a Jack.

Until now, you’ve played the hand fine. However, if you now decide to throw out a bet on the river (with third pair on a board of Q-T-9-2-J), you need your head examined! To see why, let’s think about what range of hands your opponent could have.

1 A total bluff (For example, Ace-high.)

Your opponent might have called your bet on the flop, hoping to steal the pot on the turn. With this type of hand, your opponent will most likely fold. However, this doesn’t benefit you, since you are beating a complete bluff anyway. Occasionally, your opponent will raise though, forcing you to lay down the best hand, which is a disaster.

Your opponent might have slow-played the flop with K-J, or have backed into a straight when the Jack hit on the river. With this type of hand, your opponent will raise. This doesn’t benefit you, as you simply lose extra money.

3 A marginal but worse hand (For example, a pair of nines.)

With this type of hand, your opponent will usually fold because the board has four cards to a straight and is quite threatening. You don’t gain anything by betting because you would have won the hand anyway.

4 A marginal but better hand (For example, two pair.)

With this type of hand, your opponent will sometimes fold, which is good for you. However, they will sometimes call, which is bad. Overall, the two possibilities will roughly even out, and you won’t gain or lose much.

Bet Sizing

By the river the pot is often quite large, and since the amount you bet is directly related to the size of the pot, this is a good opportunity to make some money. On every street, your ‘go-to’ bet size should usually be around two-thirds of the pot. For example, in a £6 pot, your ‘default’ bet would be £4. The reason why two-thirds is a good number is because it strikes a nice balance between many factors, two of which are:

1 The likelihood that you will be called: the smaller your bet, the more likely a typical opponent will be to call.

2 The amount of money you earn when called: the more you bet, the more money you will earn.

In practice, the likelihood that you will be called doesn’t go down in proportion to the size of your bet. For example, some opponents will actually call you more often when you make a big bet. Try to recognise when you’re up against one of these players and bet more to maximise your profit.

Checking And Calling

If you’re paying attention, you’ll have realised that if you play as I suggest, you’ll be checking a lot of medium strength hands (such as middle pair, or top pair/bad kicker) on the river. So how do you react when your opponent bets?

As an example, let’s say that in the early stages of a tourney you have 9-8 on the button, and the board is J-6-3-9-2. You and your opponent checked the flop, he bet the turn and you called, and on the river he bets 400 into the 800 pot. What should you do?

The answer requires some maths, but I’ll keep it simple. There is 1,200 in the pot and it costs you 400 to call, meaning you’re getting pot odds of 1,200 to 400, or 3-to-1. Therefore, to make the call correct you only need to win the pot once for every three times you lose it.

In this situation, a quick look back through the hand will tell you what to do. There are very few hands your opponent would plausibly play this way, and if your pair of nines was good on the turn it’s extremely unlikely the deuce on the river hurt you. A typical foe will bluff much more than a quarter of the time here, so you should call.

As a general rule, the less your opponent bets relative to the size of the pot, the more often you should call. The more they bet, the more certain you have to be that you have the best hand before you call.

Of course this rule has its caveats. Some players make smaller bets on the river when they have great hands because they’re desperate to get paid. Some players make huge bets when they’re bluffing. Figure out who these players are, then turn the tables on them.

Bluffing

So what about the times when you reach the river and you’ve got no hand at all? For example, let’s say you’re in position with 5s-4s. You bet the flop when it comes Kh-3s-2c, and bet the turn when it brings the Qs. The river arrives and it’s the Jc. There’s no hope you can win this pot by checking, so should you bet again?

The key question you should ask when considering a bluff is: ‘Do my actions throughout this hand tell a consistent story?’ In other words, if you really had a genuine hand, would you have played it the same way?

In the 5-4 example, most players wouldn’t bet all three streets unless they had, quite specifically, a set or K-Q (a lesser hand would likely check one of the streets for pot control). If you’re up against a good player, your third barrel will probably be called. However, there’s something to be said for making a large bet here – at least three-quarters of the pot – against an unsophisticated or tight opponent. The chance they will cave under pressure makes the bluff much more profitable. Your decision depends entirely on your opponent.

A Simple Plan

If you take only one thing away ?from this article, it should be to have ?a plan for whatever action you take on the river. If you bet, that bet should have a clear purpose. If you check, it should ?be for a reason. Leave the guesswork to your opponents.