Play Better Poker

By the river the pot is usually short-handed, but sometimes you have multiple opponents.  The more opponents there are the higher standards you should have for both value betting and calling.  When playing against multiple hands on the river, decisions become a lot tougher.

                As far as value raising there you need a pretty strong hand to do it.  The bettor bet into two players.  The more opponents a bettor has, the more likely he feels he is to be called, and therefore, the better his hand probably is.  This will be true of your own betting as well. A pot with more than two players is said to be protected for this reason, since the odds of a steal are greatly reduced. 

                So if a player bets with a high expectation of a call and another player calls then that caller should also have a fairly good hand.  This means that you should be much more inclined to fold your weaker hands.  Whereas Ace High might sometimes snap off a bluff it will rarely pick up a pot that is bet and called on the river.  The same is true of small pairs as well.

                Notice that I say the caller “should” have a decent hand, not will.  Remember to play your opponents.  Some people bluff every river and some players will call with as little as ace high routinely, even with players left to act behind them.  If you were against a very liberal bettor and a very liberal caller with a good sized pot you may still want to give it a shot with a junky middle pair or something.  Remember that you only need it to work a small portion of the time, and the larger the pot the less frequency your call must win to be profitable.

                It is best, when in doubt, to check and/or call the river.  Value betting is very tough since you are giving your opponents an overlay by doing so, but if a good chance comes up, you should take it.  Good value betting comes with experience and is part of what separates a strong winner from a mediocre winner, but isn’t a big enough factor to turn a significant loser into a winner.  And if your previous actions help to sell a bluff on the river, then give it a shot.  The pot is usually large enough that the bluff need not be successful very often to show a profit, and even when it fails it has some deception value. And most importantly don’t try to make strong lay downs on the river, save those for the turn.