Finding Thin Value on the River

I played a 2 hour session last night, and ran marvelously in terms of showdown winnings versus EV. Every time I got my money in good and went to showdown, it seems I won! I did find the fold button on the river in one hand where I'm sure I was ahead for the first two streets, so I wasn't invincible. However, thanks to my good luck and solid play, I picked up $250 last night. Around $150 of this can be contributed to running well, as per the EV graph below:



On to the title topic, one way to increase one's winrate is to take advantage of spots on the river where we can bet for "thin" value. What the "thin" part means is that we are in a situation where we are ahead enough of the time to make the play +EV, but not so much of the time that it is an obvious value bet. Basically, these spots reward superior hand reading, and the willingness to throw out a bet when often we could easily check and see a free showdown with a medium strength hand.

Though I've been better at finding these spots lately, here's an example hand of where I failed to do so last night:

Villain in this hand is an 8/6/1/100 nit.
Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
UTG: $52.95 (105.9 bb)
Hero (UTG+1): $63.50 (127 bb)
MP1: $49.40 (98.8 bb)
MP2: $69.25 (138.5 bb)
MP3: $22.90 (45.8 bb)
CO: $51.25 (102.5 bb)
BTN: $58.35 (116.7 bb)
SB: $42.65 (85.3 bb)
BB: $56.10 (112.2 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is UTG+1 with
UTG folds, Hero raises to $2, 4 folds, BTN calls $2, 2 folds

Flop: ($4.75) (2 players)
Hero bets $3, BTN calls $3

Turn: ($10.75) (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($10.75) (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Results: $10.75 pot ($0.50 rake)
Hero showed (two pairs, Jacks and Eights) and won $10.25 ($5.25 net)
BTN mucked (two pairs, Tens and Eights) and lost (-$5 net)

In this hand I raise AJs from UTG+1, which is standard for me currently. This is probably a pretty marginal play, and at higher limits specific table dynamics might make this -EV, but for now I'm convinced it is profitable, though not significantly.

At any rate, I pick up a club draw on the flop and continuation bet as I would regardless of my holdings. The villain calls. What does this say about his hand? His preflop calling range is pretty narrow, it consists mostly of small to medium pocket pairs. His call suggests one of the following:
1) He has a middle sized pair and wants to float the flop because my c-bet says nothing about my hand strength. This is a fairly good play on his part with a hand like 77, 99, TT or JJ.
2) He has AQ, and made TPTK. This is less likely because he should be raising the flop with this hand much of the time, to protect himself against the club draw, and also for value against a hand like JJ or KQ which I could show up with. He probably wouldn't raise if he had AQcc, but we know this can't be the case because we have the Ac!
3) He has a set. Again, this is less likely because sets will often raise to protect their hand at this point, given the two tone board A set is still possible though.

The turn comes to give me middle pair, top kicker. The flush draw does not complete. Here I make a questionable play by checking. To some players, this is a no brainer spot to bet. I have middle pair, top kicker and the NFD, which at worst has decent equity, at best a ton. However, based on my opponent's likely holdings, what does a bet here accomplish? Do worse hands call? I would think a second barrel would fold out hands like 77, 99 and TT at this point, especially with the risk of having to call a 3rd barrel on the river to see showdown (leverage remember, see last blog post). Do better hands fold? We almost certainly aren't folding out flopped sets, nor the JJ which has now turned a set. AQ almost certainly sticks around as well. So, betting here accomplishes very little, aside from building a pot large enough that should allow us to pick up a significant bet on the river from a hand like AQ should our flush come. That said, it also gives the villain an opportunity to raise us off the hand. Not a good place to bet in my opinion.

However, by checking we can sometimes induce value on the turn. Very often when a villain floats our flop bet, he is looking to bet out on the turn to take the pot down right there. A hand like 99 or TT will often bet here, which we crush. If AQ bets the turn, we still have 11 outs. We've got 7 outs versus sets. These factors make c/c the ideal line for this street in my opinion.

Unfortunately, our villain checks (that's ok, as we didn't lose a ton of value anyway). This action further narrows our villain's range. He almost certainly does not have a set as he would have bet the turn. AQ likely would have bet the turn, but cannot be completely ruled out. However, a hand like 77, 99, or TT is by far our villain's most likely holding at this point. We are ahead of his most likely holding after the river blanks. We are behind AQ, or a brutally slowplayed set. This is a good spot to bet for "thin" value. The pot is $10.25, and if we bet $3.50 I would guess villain calls 80% of the time to try and catch us bluffing.

Instead, I decide to c/c, and our villain checks behind. I take down the pot after he shows TT. Our villain knows he has some showdown value at this point, and smartly does not decide to turn his hand into a bluff. If we were playing against a looser, bluffy villain, he shows up with a busted flush draw a lot of the time here, and the c/c line would be appropriate to induce value from bluffs. However, against our particular villain betting for thin value is clearly a better play.