NL HU Cash tip #4

What does your opponent do, and how should you react, the river (PART 2)


So you have now decided to play and you picked an opponent and a buy-in amount you are comfortable with. It is time to play. What should you be thinking about? Well, you should be trying to figure out everything you can about your opponent. What hands is he raising with, what does he limp with? Does he tend to bet big with flopped trips/sets or slowplay? Does he value bet 3rd pair on the river, or does he check down? Does he tilt easily? Does he overbet a monster on the river?

We will work backwards and continue our discussion about your opponent’s river tendencies, and what you should do.

In part 2 of river play, we talk about the light value-bettor.


How do you play against the guy who:

1) Value bets very light (3rd pair through 5th pair).

Raise him often. First, you need to try to figure if he would put in a 3rd river raise with non-monsters. If not, then raise him liberally. Raise him on bluffs, raise him with top and 2-pairs, and monsters. If he is likely to reraise often (or if he catches on that you are river raising him often), then you should start to limit your raises to monsters or bluffs. The monsters are easy calls, the bluffs are easy folds. If bluff raises seem too tough to figure out when to do – pick out one type of hand that you will bluff raise the river with. (Perhaps busted straight draw that completes a possible flush?)

The common thought is to call more. There is truth to that, but to fully exploit someone who is value betting too light, you need to punish this player by raising. Calling more is OK, but you want to limit it to spots where you think you have some value and want to get to the showdown but don't want to put in any more chips.

Next time we will discuss a passive player on the river.