Värdebeta river

Funderat mkt över mitt riverspel senaste tiden, mitt spel har utvecklats men ibland känner jag mig lost hur jag bör beta, det är oftst när jag har överpar eller kanske tvåpar. Den här artikeln från Ed Miller är så bra så jag klistar in den:

Here’s a common scenario. I see a hand like this one played dozens of times during each session. Someone open raises and a player in the blinds calls. The flop comes J85. The blind checks, the raiser c-bets 3/4 pot, and the blind calls. The turn is a 2. The blind checks, and the raiser checks. The river is a K. The blind checks, and the raiser checks. The blind shows A8, and the raiser wins with QJ.

The player with QJ didn’t read his opponent’s hand very well, and as a result he missed at least one reasonable-sized bet. When a player calls from the blinds, check-calls the flop, checks the turn, and checks the river, a medium or small pair is always a good part of his range. The river king is unlikely to have hit the flop check-calling range much, so QJ figures to be a good hand in this situation. Furthermore, many players will feel compelled to call the river bet due to the fear that all the checking may have induced a bluff.

Do your opponents give you free showdowns like this one often? If you play $2-$4 no-limit or lower online, I can answer that question for you. They do. Do you give free showdowns like that one if you hold QJ? If you do, then consider refining your hand reading skills a little bit before moving up. The higher you go, the fewer free showdowns you’ll receive. If you are sitting at the higher limit giving free showdowns but not receiving them, your results will suffer.

If you’re thinking about moving up, go back through your database and look at the river play of hundreds of your hands. Are you making good value betting decisions? Are you missing value consistently? Are you consistently making better decisions than your opponents are against you? Obviously your play doesn’t have to be perfect before you can move up, but it should at least be significantly better than your average opponent’s play.

River Bet Sizing

This one is exclusively a no-limit skill, but it’s another important hand-reading-based one. My bet sizing varies far more on the river than on any other street. I’ll make 4x pot shoves on the river, and I’ll make 1/4 pot suck bets. My bet sizing choices are informed largely by my estimate of my opponent’s hand range. If I think my opponent has a strong range, but I have an even better hand, I’ll make a huge overbet hoping for a big payoff. If I think my opponent is weak but possibly willing to call something small, I’ll make the small bet. (Obviously, the better my opponent is, the more I have to engage in leveling games with my bet sizing. I’ll play in a way that suggests I’m thinking about the situation one way with unexpected hands.)

In any event, I think that smart bet sizing decisions on the river can contribute well to your winrate, and good bet sizing also goes hand-in-hand with good reading skills. How do you size your river bets? Does it work out for you? Again, go through hands you’ve played and review your bet sizing decisions. Are you making them smartly, or just betting randomly? How about your opponents? Can you decode your opponent’s river bet sizes and use that information to make better decisions? If you consistently size bets better than your opponents do, that’s a clue that you might be ready to move up.