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
This is a key situation where amateurs misplay their hands.
This is a key situation where amateurs misplay their hands. When value-betting, you must constantly think about whether your opponent can call with a hand that you beat. I would venture to say that in this situation, he probably won’t. If he checks on the river, you almost certainly have the best hand. The problem is again, what can your opponent call you with? Even though you may have the best hand 75 percent of the time, checking is still correct because if you bet, he will fold all worse hands and call with all better hands. Of course, he may call from time to time with a 2 or an ace, but most of the time, he will either be checking down with a weak hand, intending to fold if you bet, or with a pair, planning to call if you bet. Notice that in his situation, checking makes sense with a pair because when you check behind the turn, your hand looks weak so now he can only get value out of his hand by giving you the opportunity to bluff.
A simple way to stop making poor bets on the river
A simple way to stop making poor bets on the river is to simply ask yourself how often your opponent will fold a better hand, how often he will call with worse and how often he will call with a better hand. If you will never bluff him off a better hand, the only numbers that matter are how often he will call when you are ahead versus when you are behind. If when he calls, you are behind more than half the time, checking is correct. Just realize that when you are betting something like middle pair, your opponent will usually fold most second-best hands.