Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Notice that you are not giving up on your hand
Notice that you are not giving up on your hand by checking this river. You are playing pot-control and turning your hand into a bluff catcher, which is what these medium-strength hands are. If you are in position with a weak made hand, assuming at least one earlier street was checked, feel free to value-bet the river relentlessly, as your hand is under-represented. If your opponent checked and called your flop and turn bets, assuming you have a hand like Q-J on a J-6-5-3-8 board, it’s usually best to check behind on the river as most players will not call a bet on every street with a worse hand. You almost certainly have the best hand on the river, but your opponent’s calling range probably consists mostly of hands that can beat Q-J.
If you have a strong hand out of position,
If you have a strong hand out of position, like the near nuts, you should usually go ahead and bet the river. Some players opt to check-raise on the river; I will later show why this is usually a poor line. Say you raise 8-7 from middle position and the button calls. The flop comes 6-5-2. You make a standard continuation bet and your opponent calls. The turn is the 9. You bet again and he calls. Bet again on any river. Your opponent clearly has a decent hand and will probably call one more bet. If you check with the intention of raising, your opponent will only bet fairly strong hands like top pair, which would have called your bet, and will fold to a raise unless he is the biggest calling station in the world. If he does have a strong hand like a set, he will raise but then just call your check-raise, whereas if you bet and he raises, you can re-raise, usually getting a call, winning you one extra large bet. The only time check-raising gets more money out of your opponent is when he has a total bluff and would have folded to your river bet. Most opponents won’t even try to bluff the river when you show two streets of aggression, so check-raising the river is usually a fairly weak play.