Knowing how to get maximum value on the river is all about weighing the board against a player’s habits and reducing your own mistakes. If you have bloated the pot out of position with a marginal hand against a good aggressive player, you are going to get schooled an awful lot of the time. The bigger the pot, the bigger the mistakes and we know that we make more money in position because we make fewer and smaller mistakes.
Remember that $1 saved is the same as $1 made. You should have plans for the river early on and think about which cards are likely to help your opponent’s range and which will hit your perceived range and allow you to bluff. Decide early in the hand whether you want to play a big or a small pot.
Value-betting and bluffing on the river is what sorts the men from the boys in six-max cash games. Astute players who are focused will make more regular thick and thin value bets, bluff opponents off marginal holdings and scoop more pots. A typical example would be a $0.50/$1 no-limit player with Ah-Ad on a Jh-7d-7s-5s-4s board when he has been betting in position every street against a known passive fish. A weak-tight player would check back this hand on the river, being scared of a check-raise or value-cutting himself against a flush or straight. A good player would recognise that the bulk of the fish’s range is J-x and extract value, knowing that if raised he can fold pretty easily.
Picking your poker foes
The most important thing to recognise is the level of your opponent. Is he some terrible fish who is incapable of folding Ah-Ad on an 8d-9s-Js-Qs-Ks board? You should never bluff this guy but should value-bet a lot of hands as well, even A-8 on a 5-4-8-J-2 rainbow board. Against nut peddlers the main consideration is to avoid paying them off with the second-best hand. If you’ve three-bet from the cutoff with J-Q and been check-called all the way on a 4-4-Q-9-3 rainbow board, you’re unlikely to be called by anything you’re beating and should check back on the river. Always think about what a given opponent will do and not what they actually should do.
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