Value Betting (Day 7 Course Discussion)

I realized that maybe I should pay more attention to betting patterns to determine ranges.

If you are better at marking a range of the player and you have him beat then it helps to size a bet that you think he may call. I have been guilty of pot sized bets and making opponents fold instead of getting that last sheriff call on the showdown.

Gutshot Gus said:

I realized that maybe I should pay more attention to betting patterns to determine ranges.

If you are better at marking a range of the player and you have him beat then it helps to size a bet that you think he may call. I have been guilty of pot sized bets and making opponents fold instead of getting that last sheriff call on the showdown.

Click to expand...

This is a good lesson to learn. I see a lot of pot-sized bets that end of confusing me when I see the opponent's hands.

In last hand in video
After Ace hit the board should we value bet before river to check if villain can beat us???
If he had call our bet we would know maybe he’s got ace, if raise maybe save us from loosing all chips.

This chapter is one of the most important of the book and I would like to observe a few things:

“Betting with a probable best hand is called making a value bet. There are multiple other reasons to bet, such as betting as a bluff with the aim of getting a better hand to fold.”

The chapter/day 7 dictates the principle of poker and why we do play it: to value bet, which means betting with the best hand to get called for a worse/dominated hand. At micro stakes, e.g, many players are addicted to any aces. So we suppose one of these players is sitting in the Big Blind and we raise 2.5x sitting in the BTN holding AQo: Villain in the Big Blind calls and the flop comes TA6, and we know villain likes to play any ace. BB checks and we could/should make a value bet, because if he has any ace, he’s going to call at least two streets of value. Some will even put up all-in, or donk bet flop/turn/river owning dominated aces, in this case we should bet/raise for value.
Now the opposite of value betting is quite tricky, because we do bet in order to make best hands to fold. To achieve this level we must know our opponent, know his probable range of hands and a bit of meta-thinking.
Many players will cry out that “villain should’ve folded in a situation like this or that”, when villain hero calls our bluff. But there are players that simply cannot be bluffed out of the pot, because they don’t comprehend some poker fundamentals and are only looking to the absolute value of their hands.
It is good to try to bluff more experienced players instead of beginners, because these players are capable of leaving TPTK, Two Pair, Sets in a coordinated board, straights when there are three or more cards of the same suit on the board, and to fold flushes, when there are doubled cards on the board. Some players are capable of folding even full-houses, in this situation/versus this kind of disciplined regulars, we can bet for bluff when we are able to represent and tell a coherent story from the preflop action until the turn or river.
So we must master range reading and opponent reading in order to bet either for bluff or value:

“The decision about whether or not you can value bet normally depends on your ability to put your opponent on a range. If you have the nuts, then you can of course always value bet. If you have the nut low -- the worst possible hand -- then you probably shouldn’t value bet!”

I'm going to assess the probability that
I have the best hand to decide if I should bet for value.

Day 7 finished:
Value betting was a good topic added to my knowledge.
Thanks.

I used to just try to win the hand but now after learning the concept of value betting, I try to get the most out of my winning hands. Thanks again for the elevation and the thought process involved in making the best BET!

Day 7 completed. It's true, understanding bet value in poker is essential for maximizing profits with our strong hands and optimizing our strategy. Thank you for sharing this valuable lesson!

If my opponent checks on every street, how can I be sure they are truly weak and not attempting an iconic slowplay (like those seen in movies), and why is their checking pattern sufficient to justify the value bet with my marginal hand?

Finished Day 7

A very nice sentence which i like.

A huge part of winning at poker is simply making the best hand and betting it.

Hello Poker fans,

Great stuff in this content. I have to be more deliberate in my value bets. I am losing a lot of value checking when betting is the better option. I am definitely one of those players who see monsters under the bed! I have to get the fear of bad beats and trappers out of my head.

This is one area that I will be making a big effort to improve.

See you at the tables.

Hello Poker fans,

I am pleased to report that I got the quiz questions correct. Proud of me

My game has definitely improved as a result of an improvement in my c-betting. I have had a few mis-steps but a cooler is a cooler and accepting it has been long process.

See you at the table.

Cheers.

The seventh lesson is an excellent addition to the previous days of training, helping to grasp the full picture of how to play at the table. The selected examples clearly demonstrate how much to bet and why; now it is just a matter of putting this into practice and correcting your mistakes. You are doing a great job.

I found this lesson really interesting because value betting seems simple at first, but there is actually a lot to consider when deciding how much value you can get from a hand.


I think one of the biggest challenges is knowing when your opponent is likely to call with a worse hand. It can be tempting to make a bigger bet because you have a strong hand, but if the bet is too large, you may only get called by hands that beat you.


I also liked the idea that value betting isn’t necessarily about making the biggest possible bet. It’s about finding the amount that worse hands are willing to call. That makes understanding your opponent’s range really important.


I’m curious about something: when you’re playing against an opponent you don’t know very well, what is the best way to estimate how much they are willing to call for value?

BetterThanAvgButNotByMuch said:

From the ebook, I got that it reminds you that value betting is betting a hand that you think is best. The Q4 example in the ebook is an interesting example with value betting but makes sense from the action in the hand.

Click to expand...

I'm having a lot of trouble with this example. We have rivered 4th pair (with Q4o) and we're supposed to bet here? Isn't this a classic case of having almost no hands behind us that will call and almost no hands ahead of us that would fold? Granted there aren't very many ahead of us period, but 7x and 55 etc can easily call a small bet here and sizing up is not advisable with such paper thin value, especially when backdoor diamonds came in for free. The claim is made that the flush would bet. Not necessarily. Remember, the back door came in for free. An out of position bet could easily make us fold, so a check raise is totally possible here! Likewise 2x and A-high MIGHT call us here and also 33 (all 6 combos, woo!) but probably only because of the limp pot and checked streets making our bet look like a weak stab. Nothing else behind us is calling. The chances that we make more money here than just checking back is next to zero and the chances that Villain folds a better hand are almost zero. Just check it back and take the tiny pot without getting cute.

The text advises ...

redboy23 said:

"which hand can villain have that would call me".

Click to expand...

... but the example does not consider this very well. It just seems to assume that A-high is paying us a ton and that 7x is always folding. I don't agree. A-high is not calling as often as you think, 7x is folding much less than 100% and backdoor diamonds (for free) can easily check-raise us.

ronn6583 said:

If you think it’s likely you have the best hand, always consider value betting it.

Click to expand...

Agree. CONSIDER value betting. But I also have a little trouble with this statement ...

While we all know that there’s slightly more to the game than that, it’s actually a pretty
reasonable first go at a winning strategy: “Make a good hand, and bet it.”
{/QUOTE]

Now I understand it and I totally agree with it, but the way that it is worded I think is misleading to new players. Probably the worst mistake that new and chronically weak players make is a calling station mindset of trying to hit a strong hand. It's just a terrible strategy because poker is not a card game like Crazy 8s or Go Fish or even Cribbage. It is a BETTING game that uses cards. We will never be successful if we try to play cards and build hands because the card deals are random. We can't control whether we get a good hand or not. We win with betting (or not). Trying to play cards only leads to weak passive play that never drives the action.

Don't get me wrong, yes, the statement is true, most often we win pots by having strength and betting it for value, however, the way that it is worded seems to reinforce the bad mindset that our strategy is to just try to hit a strong hand so we can grin at showdown. This just reinforces a weak calling station attitude that helps no one. The statement should read more like, "When we are strong we want to get paid, so we value bet."

Click to expand...

Done!

Value betting means betting your strong hands to get called and paid off by worse hands.
When an opponent checks repeatedly, they are showing weakness, making a thin value bet profitable.
Only value bet when worse hands can realistically call you, not just because you have a good hand.