The Real Value of a Value Bet
A value bet is bet made when you think yourself to be in the lead with your hand and you’re trying to make the most of it by extracting that little bit more. Let’s say you have A2 of spades. You make a raise on the button. The flop comes Ah 3s Ks. You semibluff the nut flush draw raising of the pot. You get a reraise and cold call. The turn comes Js. You make your pot bet again, and your opponent again reraises you. Here’s where you have to decide on how to get maximum value out of your online poker hand. You can reraise now and see if he calls, or you can cold call again, representing simply a big A. It depends on how you precieve your opponent, if you feel he’ll call your bet and not see the flush card as a scare card, go ahead and 4bet him. This is good against players who like to donk bet into made hands. If you can polarize his range at the casino and think he may be on AK, then even better. You decide to cold call. The next online poker card comes Ad. This could be a scare card for you since AK now has a boat. But in most cases, you’re still looking to value bet here. The likelihood of such a holding is small considering the action we’ve seen, he’s simply reraising you each time you bet and you’re calling. So, instead of looking at it as simply a scare card for you, you can look at it as a scare card for both of you, since he may be putting you on AK as well. So what to do. He checks to you. Here’s where the concept of value betting comes in. You have to bet here, again I’d go with the standard line of the pot that will give him incredible odds to look you up. And since he checked, showing weakness or fear he’ll, either fold, or he’ll call and you’ll extract that extra bit of money. And if he is on the AK boat, well, consider it a bad beat and move on. That’s no excuse for not value betting your nut flush.
