A lot of beginning players are unaware of the real reasons to bet in poker. They usually think you should bet if you think you have the best hand. This is not the case.

There are 3 reasons to bet:

1. For value, i.e. because you expect to be called by a weaker hand
2. Capitalizing on dead equity, i.e. to make your opponent give up his equity (often called betting for protection)
3. As a bluff, i.e. to make your opponent fold a better hand

I`m gonna post three articles explaining the three concepts above. I`ll gonna start with reason 1, for value.

As I mentioned before, just because you think you have the best hand isn`t a good reason to bet. To illustrate this argument, take a look at the following example:

Let`s say you have KhTh on a Qh 4x 2x Jh 7h board. On the flop both you and your opponent checked, on the turn you bet and your opponent called. You`re first to act on the river and you wonder whether you should bet again or not. You figure you probably have the best hand, since your opponent could have called your turn bet with a Q, a J, a straight draw or a lower flush draw. However, you`re up against a very tight opponent who won`t put any more money in the pot unless he has the Ah.

In this situation is does not make sense to bet. Consider the following two possible scenario`s:

1. you have the best hand

In this case, you won`t win more money by betting than by checking, since your opponent won`t call your bet.

2. he has the best hand, i.e. he has the A high flush.

In this case, you`re obviously worse off if you bet, since you`ll lose an extra bet. If you check you can fold to your opponents bet, since he`ll only bet if he has the A high flush.

The conclusion is that we cannot bet 'for value', as we won`t get called by worse hands.

(continued)

Now let`s look at another example. Let`s say you raised preflop with AsKd, you get called by 1 opponent and the flop comes Ah Th 9s. Your opponent checks. Can we bet for value?

Again we have to ask ourselves, 'will we get called by worse hands'? In this case the answer is clearly yes. Our opponent could call us with a weaker ace, a T, a flush draw and a straight draw, QJ or 78.

In the examples we looked at so far, it was pretty obvious whether we should bet or not. Now let`s look at an example where the it`s not as clear.

Let`s say we raise preflop with 78o, again we get 1 caller and the flop comes K 8 2 rainbow. Our opponent checks. Can we bet for value? Again, we ask ourselves, will we get called by a weaker hand? In this case the answer is maybe. It depends on our opponents tendencies. A tight opponent will probably fold any weaker hand, but a looser opponent might call us with A high or a hand like 77 or 66.

Hope this makes sense to everyone, feel free to post any questions / comments!

Nice one Japmaster!
It will be translated and placed in the Spanis forum as well !

Very nice, but this situation won`t occur very often right? Could you post some more examples please?

Thanks!

Yeah it would be nice to see some more examples, what about if you have something like a weak top pair on the turn, like KT on K892 and you get called on the flop, can you still valuebet the turn?

@dave:

this depends on a few things:

*whether there was a flush draw possible on the flop
*how loose you`re opponent is

Typically against a tight opponent on a monotone flop (3 different suits) I would check the turn, because there aren`t that many hands that we beat that will call us (TJ/67/TT/JJ). If the flop was duotone (2 suits) then there are more hands in his range that we beat (all the flushdraws, AQ/AJ/AT/QJ/Axs). This would shift my action to betting. Or, if the flop is monotone but you`re opponent is very loose, I would bet as well, cos he could have a lot more hands like a 9, an 8, a pocket pair, or even just A high.

The reason I choose clear cut examples in the article is that I wanted to clarify the concept. In most situations the decision to valuebet or not will depend on a lot of factors.