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The River Quiz
If you’re used to playing No Limit Hold’em tournaments, particularly if you’re a Sit & Go player, you may not be very experienced when it comes to playing the river. Tournaments are generally short-stacked affairs, and often the correct move is to bet or raise all-in before the river card is even dealt.
However, in cash games, or in the early stages of a deep-stacked tournament, knowing how to play the last card is extremely important. River play when the stacks are deep is a subtle art requiring skill and good judgement. Here we’ll look at a few typical river dilemmas, and talk through the various possible moves you can make.
The following hands are all taken from the same $2/$5 No Limit cash game in Las Vegas. The game has just started, so you don’t have much information on your opponents. Everybody has bought in for the maximum $1000.
Scenario 1 – Raising for Value
Preflop, you picked up As-6s on the button, and called the cutoff’s raise to $25. The flop came Kh-9d-3s. The cutoff checked and you checked. The turn came the 4s, and the cutoff bet $30. You called and the river came the 2s, giving you the nuts (a straight flush is not possible because of the cards you hold in your hand). You notice the cutoff sits up a little straighter in his chair, double-checks his cards, then sighs a little as he bets $50. What should you do?
- Fold
- Call
- Raise to $100
- Raise to $250
- Raise all-in for $945
Answer
If you chose answer 1 or 2, you should put down this magazine and call a doctor. You may have a serious brain tumour which is affecting your thinking.
Now that we have the completely crazy answers out of the way, let’s think about what the cutoff might have. He raised before the flop, but he was in a steal position, so he could have anything, right? Well, probably not – in cash games, there is much less blind stealing than you would expect if you’re primarily a tournament player. The cutoff probably has a genuine hand of some sort – not necessarily a monster, but something that rates to be a favourite against the three players behind him.
He checked the flop, so he probably either completely missed it, or hit a monster and decided to slowplay. After all, with a medium strength hand like top pair, you’d expect him to bet, both to extract value and to protect his hand.
On the turn, he bet. After it was checked round on the flop, everybody would make this bet, so it tells us very little. His actions on the river, however, are full of information. His bet of $50 is decidedly weak-looking, into a pot of $117. What’s more, he shows three classic tells of strength – engaging behaviour (sitting up straight in his chair), double-checking his cards (did I really just make a huge hand?), and the sigh (for more on tells and what they mean, see InsidePoker 46, Dec 2007).
Of course, you don’t know this opponent well. His sigh, the weak bet, and other behaviour might mean genuine weakness. But his actions, along with his betting patterns, have told you all you need to know. He probably has either a very strong hand that he feels he must value bet (like a set or a flush smaller than yours), or he has nothing at all and is trying to bluff.
Now that you know that, your job is to extract the maximum. When he has something like the second nut flush, all the money is going in – it almost doesn’t matter how you play. Similarly, if he has nothing, he’s going to fold to any raise that you make. Therefore, we need to make a bet that balances the chances of getting called with the reward when we do get called.
It seems fairly obvious that Option 3 will get called more often than Option 5, because sets and small flushes will definitely call a minimum raise, but may not call an all-in bet. But getting called as often as possible is not our goal – making money is. If your raise of $50 is called 100% of the time, you earn $50 in the long run. However, if you raise $200, you only have to be called 25% of the time to make that same $50. If you raise $1000, you only need to be called 5% of the time. The more you raise, the less often you need to be called to win the same amount of money.
In real poker, the chances of getting called do not go down linearly relative to the amount that you bet. In reality, a $50 raise might be called 99% of the time (EV $49.50), and a raise of $100 90% of the time (EV $90). That means that often, a big, oversized raise is the correct play.
I would often raise all-in.
Scenario 2 – Checking a ‘Strong’ Hand
It’s a blind VS blind situation. Your opponent in the small blind limped in, and you checked. It was checked down to the river, where the final board is 6h 7h 8s 8h 4h. You have 6d 5s, and just made a straight. The pot is $10, and your opponent checks. What should you do?
- Check
- Bet $5
- Bet $10
- Bet $20
Answer
Betting on the river is, in some ways, very simple. We want one of two things to happen – our opponent to fold a hand that ties or beats our own, or our opponent to call our bet with a hand that is worse than our own. If we can’t achieve either of these goals, we should not bet.
In this situation, if our opponent has a better hand than us which he has decided to trap with, he is certainly not going to fold. There is literally no hand better than ours that will fold to a bet.
If our opponent has a worse hand than us, he is certainly not going to call either. He’ll either fold, in which case we gain nothing, or he’ll raise, in which case we’ll have to fold the best hand, which is a disaster.
Betting here has no possible upside, but gives your chance an opponent to bluff you off the best hand, and reopens the betting if he has something strong. It doesn’t matter that you have a straight. You should check.
Scenario 3 – A Close Decision
The button and small blind both limped before the flop, and you checked in the big blind. The flop came 6s 4d 2s. The small blind checked, you bet $10, and only the button called. The turn was the 9c. You bet $25 and the button called. The river was the Jh, making the final board 6s 4d 2s 9c Jh.
Part A
What should you do if you have Ks Qs?
- Check
- Bet $40
- Bet $80
Part B
What should you do if you have As 4s?
- Check
- Bet $40
- Bet $80
Answer
If you have K-Q of spades, checking is giving up the pot. If your opponent bets, you can’t call with just king-high, and if he checks, he will probably still have king-high beat. You could check, intending to raise a bet, but that’s a very risky play and probably not appropriate in this situation.
If you bet, you might get your opponent to fold a hand which is weak, but still better than yours – like a busted ace-high flush draw, or a pair of fours. You’ve shown strength all the way through the hand, so it will be difficult for him to call you with something so weak. With the K-Q, you should bet. How much depends on how much you usually bet on the river with strong hands. Earlier in this quiz, we bet big with a strong hand, so we want to stay in character and bet big again. $80 seems fine.
If you have the A-4 of spades, you’re in a different situation. Now, it’s much more unlikely that you’ll make a better hand fold (a hand like A-6 or 6-7, which flopped top pair, frequently gets stubborn and refuses to believe you). What’s more, it’s also unlikely that a worse hand will call – a busted king-high flush draw, for example, cannot call a bet – but you might get raised off the best hand by a bluff.
You should check. By doing so, you give your opponent a chance to make a mistake by checking the best hand, or betting with a worse hand than yours (which you will call). Betting gives your opponent no such opportunity, and is the inferior play.
Summary
A tiny change in the hand you hold makes a big difference to how you play. In Scenario 1, we saw that it can be correct to bet big with the nuts to extract maximum value. In Scenario 2, we learned that sometimes, checking a hand that seems strong is the right play. Lastly, in Scenario 3, we bet with the lesser hand while checking the better one.
River play is counter-intuitive, which is why it’s a fine art. But if you can master it, you’ll have a big edge over your opponents.
