learn · river
The river.
The last card is down and nothing can improve. Everything that made the earlier streets complicated disappears with it, and two reasons to bet remain: a worse hand pays you, or a better hand folds. If neither applies, you check.
two reasons, and nothing else
Value
You bet because a worse hand pays you. The test is one question: name a hand you beat that calls here. If you cannot name one, this is not a value bet and you check.
Bluff
You bet because a better hand folds. That only works if your story matches what you have done all hand, and if your opponent genuinely holds hands he is able to fold.
Otherwise: check
If your bet falls into neither category it earns nothing. A hand with a little value that only gets called by better hands costs you money the moment you bet it.
The first of the three is a value bet, and its size follows from who you want along: small when you are tempting a marginal hand, large when your opponent holds enough strong hands to call. Bet large only with your best hands and small with the rest, and your bet size becomes the information he beats you with.
the arithmetic of a bluff
A bluff is not a feeling but a ratio. Bet 50 into a pot of 100 and you risk 50 to win 100, so your opponent only has to fold 33.3 percent of the time for the bluff to break even. Bet the whole pot and he has to fold half the time. Betting larger is not braver, it is a higher requirement you set yourself, and how often he folds is what the glossary calls fold equity.
Which hand you bluff with matters. You hold on a board of . Your flush never came, so at the end you never win. But you are holding the ace of hearts, which means your opponent cannot have the highest flush. A card like that is a blocker, and it turns a worthless hand into the best bluff you have.
calling or folding
On the other side of it, a hand that only beats a bluff is a bluff catcher. The decision is another ratio: against a half pot bet you pay 50 to win 200, so you need 25 percent. If you think he bluffs here more than one time in four, you call. Get to showdown often enough against the right opponents and that call pays for itself.
What you put in earlier in the hand does not count towards that. That money belongs to the pot, not to you, and forgetting it is the most common reason people call too often. The free pot odds calculator gives the percentage you need in one step, and the short definition of pot odds sits in the glossary.
How often someone bluffs is not something you know; you estimate it. Against a careful player who rarely bets without a hand, a bluff catcher is simply a fold. Against someone who attacks every pot you call more often. Judging that difference starts with what he did on the turn, because a hand that only becomes large on the river out of nowhere is rarely value.
next step
The practice: one real decision a day.
On the river the pots are largest and the mistakes most expensive, so this is where practice pays best. The hand of the day archive holds one hand for every past day where something is genuinely at stake, with the solution alongside it and with what each option costs in big blinds.
questions about the river
What is the river in poker?
The fifth and last shared card, and the final betting round. Nothing can improve any more: your hand is finished and the only questions left are who holds the best one and how much more goes into the pot.
When should you bet the river?
Only if a worse hand pays you, or a better hand folds. There are no other reasons. The common mistake sits between the two: betting a marginal hand that only better hands call and every worse hand folds to.
How often does a bluff have to work to be profitable?
That follows from your bet size. Bet half the pot and you risk 50 to win 100, so your opponent has to fold at least 33.3 percent of the time. With a pot sized bet it is 50 percent. The larger your bet, the more often the bluff has to work.
When do you call with a bluff catcher?
You put two numbers next to each other. A half pot bet means you pay 50 to win 200, so you need 25 percent. If you think your opponent bluffs here more than one time in four, calling is right. Against someone who almost never bluffs, the same hand is simply a fold.
What is a blocker?
A card in your own hand that your opponent can no longer hold. If you hold the ace of hearts, he cannot have the highest flush. That makes your hand a better bluff, because part of the strongest hand he would call with is sitting in your own hand.
Why is never bluffing also a mistake?
Because then you only bet with strong hands, and everyone notices eventually. If your river bet is always value, nobody has to pay you off. A modest number of bluffs is what gets your good hands called.
Back to the overview of learning poker, or read why a correct decision that loses is still correct.