How and When to Make a Value Bet in Poker

Value Bet Example

Say the maximum value bet a player will call is $50.

If you get $40, you’ve lost $10 (20% of the bet). But if you bet $60, the player will fold, losing you $50.

Money not made is money lost. A botched value bet will cost you money. Even though you won the pot, you should note it as a mistake and work at correcting it.

I’ll repeat myself, because this is so crucial: properly value betting is the difference between making a little bit of money at poker and making a lot of money. It’s one of the most important aspects of poker for any player to master.

The River Value Bet

Quite often in the course of an average poker session you’ll be faced with this dilemma:

• When in position, should you bet the river for value?

The plus side is obvious. When your opponent calls with a worse hand you stand to win a bigger pot. But by betting the river, rather than checking, you make yourself vulnerable to a check-raise. 

If your opponent does check-raise you’ll be in a tough spot whereas you could have avoided all that by seeing a cheap showdown.

Related Reading:

• 10 Essential Hold’em Moves: The Check-Raise

Which Hands Can Be Value Bet?

First, decide if your hand warrants a river value bet or not. There’s no one answer – merely a sliding scale based on the factors below.

There are very few hands that you can paint with a broad “Always value bet” or “Always check down” brush. Poker is not that easy. 

Your hand must be strong enough that if you’re called it’s best at showdown. After all, that’s what you are doing with a value bet:

• Trying to make your opponent call with a worse hand

Depending on the factors below you could decide to value bet the river holding anything from a single-pair hand to a full house.

Which Players Should You Value Bet?

Your opponent is easily one of the most important factors when deciding to bet for value or not – he or she makes all the difference.

One opponent may call large river bets with any pair; another may fold everything but trips or better. You must identify your opponent’s playing tendencies before opening yourself up with a value bet.

The ideal opponent to value bet is a loose-passive player. Loose-passive players play too many hands and go too far with them. These players are just ATMs dispensing cash. Value bet them relentlessly.

If you notice a player calling down lightly (with worse-than-average hands), hammer those rivers with top pair, good kicker, because you know that player will call.

Further, due to their passive nature, loose-passive players are less likely to punish you with a check-raise.

Related Reading:

• How to Adjust to a Tight or Loose Game

Don’t Ignore Tight-Aggressive Players!

Tight-aggressive players can also be targeted for value betting. This may sound counterintuitive – after all, how can both loose-passives and tight-aggressives be value-bet targets?

Doesn’t a tight-aggressive style tend to defeat loose-passive players? Wouldn’t that mean that TAGs are less likely to make river calls with worse hands? Yes and no. It depends on how good a player he or she is.

Over the years TAGs have learned about pot control and found that value betting other TAGs with one pair is a losing proposition because TAGs do not pay off rivers with a worse one pair.

These same TAGs now know that a player firing three barrels (i.e. a river bet as well) has either a monster or a stone-cold bluff. There are fewer monsters out there than bluffs, so a lot of TAGs will end up making hero calls against a player who fires three barrels.

It’s up to you to find out who these players are. Some TAGs are fixated on trying to make hero calls on the river. If you can find those players, you can exploit them.

How Does Your Image Affect Value Betting?

Your image dictates how your opponents are going to play against you. It affects every decision they make, so ultimately it should determine every decision that you make.

You can obviously then use your image to your advantage. If you have caught a wave of cards and been very active, but haven’t shown anything down, players will perceive you to be loose-aggressive.

If your opponents think you’re loose-aggressive they’ll call you down lighter on the river. This is what you want. A player who will call you down light will also pay off your value bets.

River = Big $$$

The river is the most important street to play. Sure, you don’t play as many rivers as you do flops, but it’s by betting the river when the pot is big that you’ll make your money.

Don’t get into the habit of wanting to see cheap showdowns. Use all the information you have available and look for good spots. 

If you feel that your opponent might call with a worse hand, absolutely stick a bet out there.

Making good river value bets can take your game to the next level. If you look for good spots, you can make a killing. If you don’t, you’ll be leaving money on the table.

Simple Money Mistake or Deep Human Paradox?

It’s clear from a basic strategic perspective that failing to bet the river here is a money mistake. Dan Harrington has argued that it’s one of the most common and costly errors that otherwise good players make.

Failing to value bet in such situations can, over the long haul, turn a small winner into a break-even player or even a loser.

So, why do so many players do this? Why would they give up a chance at considerable gain and accept, in its place, a more modest win?

Is this an individual, chancy thing, like stupidity? Or is it possibly the result of some deeper feature of human conduct, some tendency we have to behave in less-than-optimal ways?

It turns out that the latter is closer to the truth. There is a fascinating, deeply paradoxical and surprisingly common aspect of human behavior behind it: it’s called the uncertainty effect and it’s found whenever people are involved in situations that lack full certainty.

It may seem weird that poker players would be averse to uncertainty, but under the right conditions they will be. To get a better feel for how this mechanism operates, let’s get away from the green felt and out into the “real world.”

Here’s the deal you’re offered. You can purchase either:

1. A $50 gift certificate to a store
2. A lottery ticket where the prize will be either a $50 or $100 gift certificate (to the same store) based on the flip of a coin.

How much would you pay for each?

Astonishingly, a recent study found that the average amount people would be willing to pay for the first was MORE than for the second. And this wasn’t just one nutty outcome. This paradoxical result has been found in study after study in all sorts of circumstances.

Uri Simonsohn, at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, chalked it up to a “literal distaste for uncertainty” and reports finding it in a variety of real-world settings including book stores, restaurants, whatever.

And, of course, we see it in sharpest relief when a poker player checks on the end with what is almost certainly the best hand.

We are members of a very weird species. We are simply not the rational creatures we like to think we are. We do not make optimal decisions, even when we ought to know bette

Emotional Cost vs. Cash Cost

Now, knowing that people make these silly decisions is amusing but it’s only half the story. Why do we do these things? Why are we so ridiculously irrational?

The reason stems from a deeply ingrained human characteristic: risk aversion.

Settings that contain risk or have uncertain elements make many of us feel uncomfortable; they produce distinctly negative emotional experiences.

From an evolutionary point of view, being risk averse is adaptive. Being wary in risky situations dramatically increases likelihood of survival.

If you don’t know what’s out there waiting for you, you’re far better off being cautious and guarded – even it means you forgo occasional gains.

While this worked fine eons ago, in the modern world it yields this odd paradox where we will devalue an option that is obviously better in material terms because it is wrapped in uncertainty and loses value in psychological terms.

In short, it just may cost more emotionally to bet on the river than it’s worth in cash. About now I can hear some of you howling, “Not me doc, no way would I do anything that stupid.”

Well, maybe you wouldn’t … and maybe you would. We don’t know since we haven’t collected the data. But do ask yourself if you’ve ever checked the river in this kind of hand.

And, in case you’re curious: Simonsohn’s data shows that the uncertainty effect is found in over 60% of the population.

Example #1:
Imagine you’re holding A K on a board of A Q 10 9 6 . Your opponent has checked to you on the river, and you suspect they might call a decent-sized bet with a weaker ace or maybe a pair like J J . Even though the board looks scary to some, if you’ve tracked your opponent’s tendencies and know they’ll call with marginal hands, this is a prime spot to fire a value bet.

So, the next time you have a strong made hand, especially on the river, remember that your opponent’s willingness to call with second-best holdings can help you scoop bigger pots. If you never push the envelope for maximum value, you risk missing out on the profits that separate break-even players from consistent winners.

Example #2:
Consider a live $2/$5 game where you hold A K on a 7 A K 3 8 runout. Your heads-up opponent has shown a tendency to check-call multiple streets with marginal holdings. Betting the river for value here makes sense because they might pay you off with a weaker ace (like A 8 ) or even a stubborn middle pair if they’re suspicious enough.

Rethinking Range Versus Range

When you reach the river, both you and your opponent have drastically narrowed down your ranges. Strong river play often hinges on estimating how wide your opponent will call versus how likely they are to raise. This can involve considering blockers in your hand or the total number of value combinations you can credibly represent. If you sense that your opponent is more inclined to make hero calls, you can lean toward a larger sizing when you have a hand near the top of your value range. Meanwhile, if you think they’ll fold marginal hands to anything sizable, you can opt for a smaller bet that still looks large enough to threaten them but doesn’t scare them off.

Sizing your bets in line with your perceived range is crucial. If you’ve fired multiple streets representing a very strong hand, a sudden tiny bet on the river might look suspiciously like a bluff. Conversely, a sizeable bet after a passive line might not be believable as a monster. You want the story you’ve told throughout the hand to match your final bet size.

The Psychology of River Calls

Even mathematically minded players can fall into the trap of emotional decision-making. Some opponents will pay you off after they’ve invested heavily, just to confirm whether you actually have it. Others might fold to avoid feeling “outplayed” or embarrassed by a marginal call. Understanding these psychological tendencies can be just as vital as knowing standard pot odds and expected value calculations.

By pairing your strategic knowledge with an awareness of your opponent’s mental state, you can refine your river bet sizes to maximize returns. In some cases, just a small shift in your bet sizing can mean the difference between being called by a second-best hand or watching your opponent fold.

Balancing Your Value Bets and Bluffs

Astute opponents will keep track of your range frequencies, so if you only bet big when you have the nuts, you’ll rarely get called. Conversely, if you often bluff in spots where you also make large value bets, you create a dynamic that can cause more call-downs when you’re actually strong. This balance, or at least a semblance of it, makes you harder to read. By mixing in a few strategic bluffs with your big value bets, you keep observant players guessing.

A final note: be sure to record hands and review them. Whether you use tracking software or a good old-fashioned notebook, studying your own hands and outcomes allows you to spot patterns, refine your approach, and plug any leaks that keep you from maximizing river value.