Poker Strategy – Playing the River

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River Playing Features

Play online poker on iPad and choose playing the River there. River is the last betting round in Texas Hold’em. It is as much important as any other streets. You’ll often face a decision whether to put your stack in by betting or by calling. Your playing on other streets is very important. So, still there are some things you should know to have relatively easy decision on the river.

Stack to Pot Ratio

This isn’t a river specific thing, but it also applies on the river, especially when bluffing. Imagine! You have a trashy hand on the river and the pot is already big. You have less than a half pot-sized bet left. This is exactly the situation where bluff will almost never work. As your opponent gets great odds for calling and has to own pretty small percentage of time to show profit.

On the other hand, if the stack to pot ratio is big and you have more than a pot-sized bet left in your stack, bluff is more likely to work. Meanwhile your opponent has to have a stack of the same amount.

3barell bluffs

3barell bluff is a term describing betting the flop, turn and river with nothing and hoping that your opponent will fold. While 3barell bluffs are common at mid-high stakes games, they aren’t used very often in micro-small stakes games.

I would actually go so far to tell that 3barell bluffs are completely useless in micro and small stakes. However, there are rare exceptions. One of them is when you have a huge read that some players fold rivers in huge pots unless they have the nuts. Otherwise, don’t fall in love with the idea of 3 barrel bluffs’ period!

Checking hands

You’ll often hear people telling such a thing: all you need to win at the micros is value-betting. That’s correct. As players are still pretty bad, and they will call you too light in most spots. However, at times it’s better to check with a hand that could get called by a weaker hand. Thus, giving us some value and winning money. It applies mostly to small stakes, but not micros.

There are quite a bit of players who will be good enough at understanding ranges on a deeper level. These kinds of players will be able to put you in a tough spot when they have a sense of weakness.

Times, when it’s better to check hands with value, are ones where your range features many mediocre hands and a few value hands. Your opponent has quite strong range in addition. Of course, you have to know that such player is good enough at pulling a move like this. If the rival decides to call station, don’t bother about checking bets all the time! So join poker tournaments and win pretty good money online!