The River and Hero Calls

When learning how to play winning TAG poker, the first aspect of the game one typically focuses heavily on is preflop play. Learning what hands to play from what positions and against what opponents, what ranges to 3-bet, etc. is important, and the foundation of a good TAG game. There are many regulars at small stakes who are very solid preflop, and decent amounts at microstakes as well. A few might even be exceptional, working concepts such as light 3 or 4-betting into their game against appropriate opponents. That said, preflop is the least complex of all streets in NLH, and as a result, we can find a much larger edge against reasonable players on the later, more complex streets.

Poker is about making your opponents make mistakes, while limiting your own (this is basic game theory). Because of the nature of betting during the lifecycle of a NLHE hand, the street where the biggest mistakes typically occur is the river. On the river, the bets become huge and we either have the best hand or we don't. This makes it a great street to bluff (though so is the turn, due to the leverage of a future bet on the river), as well as a great street to value bet when appropriate. Missing value on the river is a huge mistake, and often the difference between a player crushing his stakes and merely beating them.

Today however, I'd like to talk a little bit about making big river calls (sometimes referred to as "hero calls"). When we consider calling a big bet on the river, we should keep the following things in mind:
(1) How our hand stacks up against the hands that are in our opponent's range based on the betting patterns so far. Basically, how often we are ahead. This requires hand reading skills, as it is essential we are able to trim down our opponents preflop range based on his street by street decisions. Unless of course we are up against a 6/2 nit which raised UTG preflop (he has AA/KK).
(2) The pot odds we are being offered. Even if we only have the best hand 33% of the time, if we are being offered 2.5:1 on a call, calling is +EV.
(3) How likely our opponent is to be bluffing. If our opponent is a complete maniac who fires mercilessly regardless of his hand, we can obviously call down light. Furthermore, if our opponent is a good, thinking player (not an ABC nit) and the board texture has given him a good shot at bluffing, we can again call down light.

Lets look at a couple hand histories.

Villain is a 28/20/10 maniac donktard over 70 hands

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
MP1: $128.05 (128.1 bb)
MP2: $88.55 (88.6 bb)
MP3: $75.90 (75.9 bb)
CO: $21.25 (21.3 bb)
Hero (BTN): $100 (100 bb)
SB: $22.45 (22.5 bb)
BB: $56.80 (56.8 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BTN with
MP1 raises to $3, 3 folds, Hero calls $3, 2 folds

Because our villain is raising so much of his range and likely has a large 3-bet calling range, 3-betting wouldn't have been a bad move here. However, since he is liable to spew post-flop, I decide to just call and play poker.

Flop: ($7.50) (2 players)
MP1 bets $5, Hero calls $5

This is a good flop for us. Because there is only an unlikely straight draw possible, I don't think a raise is great here. While he might call a raise light with a hand like 88, TT or A9, we're probably folding out several hands we beat while being called by everything that beats us. Also, our opponent is super aggro so he'll probably keep betting worse hands for us. Thus, I just call.

Turn: ($17.50) (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $9, MP1 raises to $27, Hero calls $18

Surprisingly, Villain checks, and we need to bet to get value out of the hands we beat. The raise here is scary, as the T completes an unlikely straight, and also puts us behind another hand that we were previously taking to value town, TT. The villain is an aggro maniac however, so I call.

River: ($71.50) (2 players)
MP1 bets $93.05 and is all-in, Hero calls $65 and is all-in

The back door flush draw misses, and the river almost certainly helps nobody. Villain instantly pushes all-in. At this point I'm getting about 2.15:1 on my money to call. Based on the betting, my hand is nothing more than a bluff catcher at this point, but the villain is a donkey and extremely aggressive so a bluff is likely. If he's only full of shit once every three times he makes this move, calling is +EV. I think he almost certainly bluffs this often (especially due to the insta-push, it's like he didn't care what the river was - in my experience this usually screams bluff) so I call and scoop. I expect to get shown AA/KK/QQ/TT sometimes in this spot, though also AK/AQ and garbage a fair bit. Note that if we are going to fold somewhere in this hand, it should be to the turn raise.

Results: $201.50 pot ($3 rake)
MP1 showed (high card Ten) and lost (-$100 net)
Hero showed (a pair of Jacks) and won $198.50 ($98.50 net)


Lets look at one more hand. While I make a dumb mistake on the flop, the river decision is very interesting because we have a lot of information regarding our villain, and hand reading skills are required to make the correct decision.

Villain in this hand is a 14/11/3 regular over 1600 hands. He is a competent player and is an active member of the 2+2 forum community. I know that he is capable of creative bluffs.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
MP1: $55 (55 bb)
MP2: $106.90 (106.9 bb)
MP3: $89.50 (89.5 bb)
CO: $106 (106 bb)
BTN: $20.80 (20.8 bb)
Hero (SB): $99 (99 bb)
BB: $48.95 (49 bb)
UTG+1: $107.55 (107.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with
2 folds, MP2 raises to $4, 3 folds, Hero calls $3.50, BB folds

Standard.

Flop: ($9) (2 players)
Hero bets $6, MP2 raises to $22, Hero calls $16

Crazy flop. We have a one card open ended straight flush draw, which means we have 2 outs to the stone cold nuts. I must have not been paying attention here, because I donkbet into the villain who is the aggressor. While donkbets have their place, this is not it. I think a c/c line on this street is certainly best. As played however, we bet and the villain raises. Assuming our opponent is not making a mistake, he should not be raising with a hand like the naked Ad or Kd here, because he then gets shoved on by sets which puts him in a terrible spot. Thus, his likely range at this point consists of sets, air, and perhaps a hand like QdQx which has decent equity versus a set. He might also have AdAx or KdKx, though those probably should be calling rather than raising as well. Because he has air here a fair amount of the time, and we can spike cards to help us against any of his potential holdings, we call.

Turn: ($53) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks

Turn blanks, and checks around. Since the villain knows we probably don't have a made flush or set (we would have reraised the flop) by checking the turn we now know he probably doesn't have a set himself (he'd want to get more money in ahead by betting). Our villain's line now doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the chances of him having a small pair or missed non-diamond overs increases. Our hand now looks very much like QdQx or our actual hand.

River: ($53) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $38, Hero calls $38

The river completes the four flush and we check. Our check screams that we don't have the Ad. The villain bets fairly large. At this point his range is completely polarized. He would want to go to showdown with a set or even likely the Q-high flush here. Thus, he either has a big flush which misplayed the flop, air, or maybe a Q-high flush that is looking for thin value. The key in this spot is that we know that our villain probably knows about Clarkmeister's Theorem which states that a 4-flush board is an ideal bluffing situation. Checking here with our flush and calling induces value from worse hands which bluff, while taking a b/f type line merely folds out worse hands and is shoved on by better. We are also getting 2.4:1 on our money. Thus we c/c, induce a bluff, and scoop.

Results: $129 pot ($3 rake)
MP2 showed (high card Ace) and lost (-$64 net)
Hero showed (a flush, Jack high) and won $126 ($62 net)