$25 NL HE Full Ring: Is a raise on the river always the nuts?

fundiver199 · Jun 25, 2025

When Nathan Villiams AKA "Blackrain79" wrote his first book "Crushing the microstakes" many years ago, one of the statements in the book were "A raise on the turn is usually the nuts, a raise on the river is always the nuts". This relates to a situation, where we raise preflop, bet the flop, bet the turn, bet the river, and after having just called the whole time the Villain now wakes up with a raise. And he is mostly referring to online cash games, since this is, what he was playing.

Having largely focused on tournaments for the past several years I am hugely out of touch with current cash game player pool tendencies. So I would like to hear the opinion of others using these two hands as examples. Please feel free to comment on the other streets as well.

Hand 1 AKs on BTN
I missed the limp and only used my standard open raising size. Opponent was an unknown, but obviously he limped UTG so likely not a strong regular.

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG: $34.19 (137 bb)
MP: $25.00 (100 bb)
CO: $25.00 (100 bb)
BU (Hero): $25.00 (100 bb)
SB: $81.60 (326 bb)
BB: $25.97 (104 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with A♠ K♠
UTG calls $0.25, 2 players fold, Hero raises to $0.62, 2 players fold, UTG calls $0.37

Flop: ($1.59) A♦ 2♠ A♥ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.63, UTG calls $0.63

Turn: ($2.85) Q♠ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.14, UTG calls $1.14

River: ($5.13) 6♥ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $2.05, UTG raises to $11.28, BU (Hero)?

Hand 2 33 from UTG+1
Slightly loose open "because I felt like it". Opponent was playing VPIP 28 / PFR 4 over 25 hands so shaping up to be a semi-loose and passive player.

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 8 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG: $25.73 (103 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): $32.71 (131 bb)
MP: $25.15 (101 bb)
MP+1: $25.00 (100 bb)
CO: $27.46 (110 bb)
BU: $22.44 (90 bb)
SB: $21.65 (87 bb)
BB: $32.91 (132 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is UTG+1 with 3♦ 3♥
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.62, 5 players fold, BB calls $0.37

Flop: ($1.34) 9♥ 3♣ A♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.53, BB calls $0.53

Turn: ($2.40) 6♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.44, BB calls $1.44

River: ($5.28) 9♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.16, BB raises to $14.76, Hero?

Station_Master · Jun 25, 2025

Hand 1

Preflop
Your iso raise is too small, going to 4bb i.e. $1 would be fairly standard could even go larger.

Flop
Your cbet seems too big on such a dry texture, i think between 25% and 33% pot is a better size.

Turn
50% pot is ok, but normally on the turn you would polarise to say i have strong trips or a bluff. Also given he calls a big cbet, there is a good chance he has the remaining ace, which he wont fold to almost any size.

River
Not a bad card, you only really lose to 22, A2, A6 and AQ and plenty of weaker aces that can call
I would bet bigger. Facing the big pot size raise, it feels super underbluffed, the line, the texture, the fact you block missed flush draws... the problem is a random fish could think trips is the nuts and raise, but i think most understand that you could easily have trips too. You need to be good here 33% of the time to call, i dont think you are in practice so i might make a tight fold.

Station_Master · Jun 25, 2025

Hand 2, alot of similar themes to hand 1, betting too big on the flop and too small on turn and river.

Preflop
This is mostly a fold from this postion, but it is 0ev and can be opened occasionally.

Flop
Cbet seems a touch too big on a dry flop, something like 33% rather than 40% pot would be better but its not a huge issue.

Turn
Only betting 60% pot is an error in my view, you want to bet big to polarise to strong Ax and better or bluffs. 150% or even 200% pot would be better size. This then sets up a river jam on a good river if you were 100bb deep and maybe you atill could at 130bb.

River
Again you need to bet much bigger here. Facing the raise it depends how competent villain is, in theory he only has 1 A9s, one 99 and two 96s that beat you, but if he is bad and defends A9o then there are more combos. Here i think trips might raise for value as you will have so much Ax so i would never fold here. 3betting for value is an option but i think it would be too thin.

fundiver199 · Jun 25, 2025

Thanks for the feedback. I definitely think, I need to pick up on using larger bet sizes on turn and river rather than being stuck with my 40% and 60% buttons. Maybe this is ok in tournaments, where stacks are usually shorter, and where you are more incentivized to keep the pot small due to ICM. But in cash games I can see, that its probably leaving some value on the table.

Hand1 AKs I folded. This felt really tight, but I was not convinced a random fish does this with AJ or worse often enough, and certainly not with bluffs. I also block trips, when I have it myself, although to be fair I also block some of the boats. Hand 2 33 I called, and the Villain showed Q9s, so he was in fact value raising trips. This also makes more sense than in hand 1, because trips only formed on the river, and I could have top pair a lot.

Station_Master · Jun 25, 2025

fundiver199 said:
Thanks for the feedback. I definitely think, I need to pick up on using larger bet sizes on turn and river rather than being stuck with my 40% and 60% buttons. Maybe this is ok in tournaments, where stacks are usually shorter, and where you are more incentivized to keep the pot small due to ICM. But in cash games I can see, that its probably leaving some value on the table.

Hand1 AKs I folded. This felt really tight, but I was not convinced a random fish does this with AJ or worse often enough, and certainly not with bluffs. I also block trips, when I have it myself, although to be fair I also block some of the boats. Hand 2 33 I called, and the Villain showed Q9s, so he was in fact value raising trips. This also makes more sense than in hand 1, because trips only formed on the river, and I could have top pair a lot.

No problem. Yes bigger value sizes on turn and river is the main point. I think you made food decisions facing the raises on the river

primrose · Jun 25, 2025

Hand 1 Preflop: Would go larger, but it's not terrible

Hand 1 Flop: I would have checked this, blockers are usually overrated but in this case top card is paired, which means now we're actually blocking half of all combinations rather than just a few. So here it really matters.

Hand 1 Turn: You can bet half pot, but it's worth considering to go much bigger. An Ace will never fold, and a Queen could definitely stubborn. What if you bet 150% pot?

Hand 1 River: Here I think there's again a case for going much bigger, but okay.

Hand 1 after Raise: You know I respect River raises a lot, but, there's no way you can fold now. I don't think the rule should be taken literally; the real point is, it's not a bluff. Maybe if you had played like I suggested and then you get raised, you can fold. But you've under-repped your hand so much that this could easily be AJ raising for value, or AT. I think it's between jamming and calling here.

Hand 2 Preflop: Fine.

Hand 2 Flop: Fine.

Hand 2 Turn: I think you need to get out of the habit of betting the same amount every time. This is yet another spot to go bigger. An Ace won't fold to a pot-sized bet, and you're mostly targetting an Ace here. Unlike in the previous hand, there are three aces left in the deck that your opponent could have. Bet Pot.

Hand 2 River: Ditto, too small.

Hand 2 after Raise: This one is closer, but again, Villain could raise a 9 for value. I don't think I'm folding this one, either. Neither of these two hands was the typical "I bet a good pair for value and get raised", they were both "I bet a very unusually strong hand for value, and also I don't bet very big, and then I get raised". So I think you should call, but mostly I think you should have sized up in both hands.

Although this raise is very large, so, ugh. Maybe the second one can be a fold. I don't know.

Reading Thread: Since Station_Master said similar things, I wanna note that I commented before reading.

primrose · Jun 25, 2025

Station_Master said:
food decisions

🥝

Station_Master · Jun 25, 2025

kdmeteor said:
🥝

Good!

fundiver199 · Jun 25, 2025

Just for info I plugged the AKs hand into GTO Wizard with the small deviation, that I pretended, it was a BB defend rather than this weird UTG limp then call a small raise. I dont think, that changes the situation much. GTO Wizard basically range bet the flop for around 30% pot. It occationally check or use larger sizings, but AKs never check.

On the turn GTO Wizard always bet AKs again with some different sizings the preferred one being a 1,7 X overbet. At this point I ran out of free daily solution, so could not check, if having the flushdraw matter to sizing, or what the program would do on the river. But definitely a very large turn bet was preferred as the main play with AKs.

fundiver199 · Jun 25, 2025

Station_Master said:
I think you made food decisions

Actually it was beverage decisions, since I was drinking coffee and juice

Station_Master · Jun 25, 2025

fundiver199 said:
Just for info I plugged the AKs hand into GTO Wizard with the small deviation, that I pretended, it was a BB defend rather than this weird UTG limp then call a small raise. I dont think, that changes the situation much. GTO Wizard basically range bet the flop for around 30% pot. It occationally check or use larger sizings, but AKs never check.

On the turn GTO Wizard always bet AKs again with some different sizings the preferred one being a 1,7 X overbet. At this point I ran out of free daily solution, so could not check, if having the flushdraw matter to sizing, or what the program would do on the river. But definitely a very large turn bet was preferred as the main play with AKs.

Makes sense. And then what is it doing with AK on river shoving?

Note you can just click on the individual hands to see how flush draws play.

fundiver199 · Jun 25, 2025

Station_Master said:
Makes sense. And then what is it doing with AK on river shoving?

Note you can just click on the individual hands to see how flush draws play.

It all froze up due to “no more free daily solutions”.

enno · Jun 25, 2025

Without going into complicated decision making, it looks like you are playing against a calling station out of position in both hands and since since you did not improve your hand on the turn or river, even though you have good hands on the flop, he would probably call any bet you made. A large raise on the river from a OOP calling station would raise the white flag so a fold would be reasonable in both cases. Also in the second hand you possibly require pocket 77’s or higher to open the betting from UTG+1, where a fold would be sensible.

pentazepam · Jun 25, 2025

I think Station_Master has given you a good analysis of the specific hands.

But if you really have no reads at all and wonder what the population does, this is probably still correct on most sites:

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primrose · Jun 25, 2025

fundiver199 said:
Just for info I plugged the AKs hand into GTO Wizard with the small deviation, that I pretended, it was a BB defend rather than this weird UTG limp then call a small raise. I dont think, that changes the situation much. GTO Wizard basically range bet the flop for around 30% pot. It occationally check or use larger sizings, but AKs never check.

On the turn GTO Wizard always bet AKs again with some different sizings the preferred one being a 1,7 X overbet. At this point I ran out of free daily solution, so could not check, if having the flushdraw matter to sizing, or what the program would do on the river. But definitely a very large turn bet was preferred as the main play with AKs.

So, I don't care about what GTO says, and I don't think you should care. GTO assumes that your opponent knows your strategy perfectly and adjusts to it perfectly. This assumption is not mildly wrong, it's completely and utterly wrong. GTO is not relevant when you play against weak players, which you do at those stakes.

But also, an UTG limp+call range is not the same as BB range at all. It contains way more broadways! So even though it's a moot point because, as I said, I don't care what GTO does, I suspect it does change the result in this case. (Because I would imagine AKs bets because most things bet because you have a large range advantage, but your range advantage is much smaller against an UTG limp-call range, which contains more broadways.)

fundiver199 · Jun 26, 2025

kdmeteor said:
So, I don't care about what GTO says, and I don't think you should care. GTO assumes that your opponent knows your strategy perfectly and adjusts to it perfectly. This assumption is not mildly wrong, it's completely and utterly wrong. GTO is not relevant when you play against weak players, which you do at those stakes.

I am also not someone, who sit and work with solvers all day. But its still beneficial to know, what they suggest, because its the baseline, we are adjusting from, whenever we are trying to play exploitative poker. And in order to make good exploits, we need to have an idea about, what we think, the opponent does different than the solver.

With the AKs hand the valid reasons for not betting the flop would be, if we think, the opponent overfold to even a small bet and/or that they overbluff the turn, when we check back flop. I think, the first part is very likely to be true, because so many hands will have missed a board like AA2 rainbow, and a random fish might play a fit-or-fold style of poker. Which makes it a great flop to bluff at but poor for value betting.

I am not so sure about the other part though. Limp-calling is a very passive action, so we dont have any reason to assume, a random fish will bluff away on the turn, just because we give him a chance to do it. So all in all I dont think, its some massive mistake to check back the flop, but I am also not convinced, it has a higher EV than making the small bet, which the solver suggest. 40% is to big though.

kdmeteor said:
But also, an UTG limp+call range is not the same as BB range at all.

This is true, but there is no option to tell GTO Wizard, that UTG limped, because limping UTG is not part of a GTO strategy. So the only way to get the program to analyse postflop is to pretend, it was a BB defend. And since this situation is far more common, its also more important to analyse it and play it well.

kdmeteor said:
It contains way more broadways!

I think, that depends a lot on the player. Online there are some players, who only limp UTG to setmine. But there are also droolers, who need to see every single flop. The VPIP >80% guys. And then there are guys in between. The latter type should have a stronger range (more broadways), than they would have from BB, but not the other two types.

primrose · Jun 26, 2025

fundiver199 said:
I am also not someone, who sit and work with solvers all day. But its still beneficial to know, what they suggest, because its the baseline, we are adjusting from, whenever we are trying to play exploitative poker. And in order to make good exploits, we need to have an idea about, what we think, the opponent does different than the solver.

A lot of strong players say stuff like this, but it doesn't actually resonate with me. When I'm analyzing a spot, I don't think, "how does my opponent deviate from GTO?" I just think "what does my opponent do here?" Which in sense is strictly more accurate because it's not like your opponent ever starts with GTO and then deviates from it. They don't know GOT; they just do something else. So it's not clear why involving GTO in your thought process has a point at all.

I have some rudimentary sense of what GTO does from watching a lot of Jonathan Little's stuff, and I'm not sure if that's actually helping me except whenever I'm in a hand vs. someone really strong and am trying to play GTO.

fundiver199 said:
With the AKs hand the valid reasons for not betting the flop would be, if we think, the opponent overfold to even a small bet and/or that they overbluff the turn, when we check back flop. I think, the first part is very likely to be true, because so many hands will have missed a board like AA2 rainbow, and a random fish might play a fit-or-fold style of poker. Which makes it a great flop to bluff at but poor for value betting.

Yeah, I'm not checking because I'm expecting the guy to blast off on the Turn, I just expect him to call more, both because he can hit something and because a delayed bet looks like "Ok I don't have the Ace but you don't either since you checked, so I can steal the pot now"

Station_Master · Jun 26, 2025

kdmeteor said:
Yeah, I'm not checking because I'm expecting the guy to blast off on the Turn, I just expect him to call more, both because he can hit something and because a delayed bet looks like "Ok I don't have the Ace but you don't either since you checked, so I can steal the pot now"

While this makes some sense, understand that good players will see what you are doing quite fast.

primrose · Jun 26, 2025

Station_Master said:
While this makes some sense, understand that good players will see what you are doing quite fast.

True, but it doesn't actually matter if a competent player sees through my exploits, because I'm not doing them against him. Against good players, I just try to play GTO.

Every once in a while I'll underestimate someone, maybe someone I haven't seen much before, and then I get punished. But it's really rare.

fundiver199 · Jun 26, 2025

In both these hands I pretty much knew, the opponent was not a good player. In the AKs hand there was a limp from UTG, and in the 33 hand I had HUD-stats.

eetenor · Jul 1, 2025

fundiver199 said:
When Nathan Villiams AKA "Blackrain79" wrote his first book "Crushing the microstakes" many years ago, one of the statements in the book were "A raise on the turn is usually the nuts, a raise on the river is always the nuts". This relates to a situation, where we raise preflop, bet the flop, bet the turn, bet the river, and after having just called the whole time the Villain now wakes up with a raise. And he is mostly referring to online cash games, since this is, what he was playing.

Having largely focused on tournaments for the past several years I am hugely out of touch with current cash game player pool tendencies. So I would like to hear the opinion of others using these two hands as examples. Please feel free to comment on the other streets as well.

Hand 1 AKs on BTN
I missed the limp and only used my standard open raising size. Opponent was an unknown, but obviously he limped UTG so likely not a strong regular.

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG: $34.19 (137 bb)
MP: $25.00 (100 bb)
CO: $25.00 (100 bb)
BU (Hero): $25.00 (100 bb)
SB: $81.60 (326 bb)
BB: $25.97 (104 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with A♠ K♠
UTG calls $0.25, 2 players fold, Hero raises to $0.62, 2 players fold, UTG calls $0.37

Flop: ($1.59) A♦ 2♠ A♥ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.63, UTG calls $0.63

Turn: ($2.85) Q♠ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.14, UTG calls $1.14

River: ($5.13) 6♥ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $2.05, UTG raises to $11.28, BU (Hero)?

Hand 2 33 from UTG+1
Slightly loose open "because I felt like it". Opponent was playing VPIP 28 / PFR 4 over 25 hands so shaping up to be a semi-loose and passive player.

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 8 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG: $25.73 (103 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): $32.71 (131 bb)
MP: $25.15 (101 bb)
MP+1: $25.00 (100 bb)
CO: $27.46 (110 bb)
BU: $22.44 (90 bb)
SB: $21.65 (87 bb)
BB: $32.91 (132 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is UTG+1 with 3♦ 3♥
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.62, 5 players fold, BB calls $0.37

Flop: ($1.34) 9♥ 3♣ A♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.53, BB calls $0.53

Turn: ($2.40) 6♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.44, BB calls $1.44

River: ($5.28) 9♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.16, BB raises to $14.76, Hero?

Writing my thoughts as a I read each street have not read beyond
First hand V limps UTG this is far from the norm---when there is a deviation like this then no standard rule applies to future streets. We can assume this player will suicide bluff rivers some of the time.

On the river vs a standard player this is a fold they have A6 66 often but vs a UTG limper they could just be bully jamming--timing tells can help but this is not a 100% fold spot vs this V

Hand 2
This hand the V could have bluffs and worse value so also not a 100% fold spot---The key to this hand is range analysis on each street-- what two pair hands that boat up on the river do nothing on flop or the turn? What sets that boat up do nothing on the turn? Why would the V check jam a boat when second pair paired but there are no natural bluffs? trip 9's is not a bluff.
Yes V could do all of the above actions but at lower frequency than standard which means we cannot 100% fold.

puzzlefish · Jul 1, 2025

A raise on the river is not always the nuts. How do I know? Because obviously I have airball bluffed and suicide jammed. Maybe you want to know how frequently is it the nuts?

I find that typically at lower limits you are up against the nuts or some kind of close-nuts with a river raise 70-85% of the time, especially more so when you made a normal bet on the river. If you bet less than half pot, that sometimes stimulates bluffs, so I find it's good to do that when you are actually holding the nuts.

Having said that, people will raise rivers when they connect with what they feel is a strong draw. I wouldn't be folding a full house if there is a possible straight on the board or a possible flush, for example. It's all situational, but of course you already know that.

For these two hands, who the heck knows? First one is more likely to be a bluff than the second one. If I had to call off one of them, it would be the second.

$25 NL HE Full Ring: Is a raise on the river always the nuts?

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