Betting For Value Versus Inducing A Bluff

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When you’re out of position with a made hand, the most common decision is whether to bet your hand for value or to check it, looking to induce a bluff.

I find that most players tend to make this decision more based on their overall style than on any individual situation. Some players tend to bet most of their hands for value, figuring that they don’t want to give a free card/showdown and that they want to get value for their good hands. Other players tend to take a trappy approach to the game in general, and they like to check good hands.

Your overall style should indeed enter your decision-making. If you like to play a pound, pound, pound style where you continuation bet and double and triple barrel often, then you should tend to play your strong hands the same way. If your opponents know that you bet a wide range of hands, you’re more likely to get good hands paid off and therefore you should go for value more often. Likewise, if you play a tighter and more conservative style, then a trappy approach to big hands makes more sense in general.

But you shouldn’t let your style dictate all your individual plays. As with most poker decisions, when deciding whether to bet for value or to try to induce a bluff, weigh risk versus reward.

The first two factors to consider are your opponent’s hand range and their overall style. (I think your opponent’s general style is a more important than your own.) First look at the board and replay the hand in your head. What sorts of hands is your opponent likely to have? Are they mostly medium-sized pairs, or are they mostly drawing hands?

This factor is particularly important on the river. On the turn, you can bet for value against both medium pairs and drawing hands – both hand types will call you. But on the river, busted draws fold, so you can get value only from the pairs. And vice versa, usually only busted draws will bet as a bluff while medium pairs will tend to check it down. So, especially on the river, you have to determine whether your opponent’s range is dominated by busted draws or by medium strength made hands and tend to choose the appropriate course based on that.

Your opponent’s style is also important. In particular, how willing is he to “keep you honest” by calling with a medium pair to try to snap off a bluff? And how willing is he to bet a busted draw as a bluff? Obviously it makes no sense to try to induce a bluff against a player who just checks down all his busted draws. You want someone who is itching to pull the trigger any time he ends up on the river with jack-high.

No-limit adds another wrinkle: bet sizing. Say your opponent has half-and-half made hands and busted draws. And say you think he’s equally likely to call with the made hand as he is to bluff with the busted draw. Bet sizing now becomes the main factor.

Say the pot is $100 and you each have about $90 remaining. You think that if you shove, he’ll fold the vast majority of his hands. But if you bet $40, you can get him to make suspicious calls. Whereas, if you check, you think that when he bluffs, he’ll tend to shove, going for the maximum fold equity. Since you can get $40 betting for value, but $90 when you snap off a bluff, all other things being equal, going for the bluff will make the most over the long haul.

Here’s a hand where I decided to try to induce a bluff on two streets.

Full Tilt, $0.50/$1 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

MP: $24.95 (25 bb)
CO: $175.75 (175.8 bb)
BTN: $250.60 (250.6 bb)
Hero (SB): $151.55 (151.6 bb)
BB: $100 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with 9 9
3 folds, Hero raises to $2.75, BB calls $1.75

Flop: ($5.50) 4 5 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $4, Hero raises to $12, BB calls $8

Turn: ($29.50) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $16, BB calls $16

River: ($61.50) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $69.25 and is all-in, Hero calls $69.25

Results: $200 pot ($3 rake)
BB showed J Q (a pair of Fives) and lost (-$100 net)
Hero showed 9 9 (a full house, Nines full of Fives) and won $197 ($97 net)

On the flop I checked because my opponent was a floating-type player, and my overall strategy has me checking many low, coordinated flops because it’s easy for a position player to outplay you on a board like this one. If I’m checking a lot of these flops out of weakness, I want to check sometimes with strength also, and so that’s what I did.

After my opponent called my flop checkraise, I can begin to narrow his hand range. He likely doesn’t have an overpair bigger than mine because he failed to 3-bet preflop. He could have a flopped pair, but this board is very drawish, so he could have a number of drawing hands also.

I bet the turn for value, because both smaller pairs and draws will call, and I don’t expect him to semibluff a draw a second time if I check.

The river gives me top full house, but it bricks out for nearly my opponent’s entire range. Overall he’s going to have a fairly weak assortment at this point. He could have a lot of busted draws. He could have a seven which is now no longer than top pair. He could possibly have a four or a hand like 88 or 66. I don’t expect any of these made hands to call a large bet. He might call maybe $20 into this $60 pot with some of them.

The hand I could get the most value from (besides a five) would be a drawing hand that also contained a nine. But since I hold two nines including the nine of the flush suit, that’s a very unlikely holding for my opponent.

And if my opponent has a five (which I don’t expect given his flat call on the turn on this drawish board), he’s sure to bet the river for me if I check, so checking doesn’t really give up anything.

Since my opponent was aggressive and because his range included a lot of busted draws and some marginal made hands that he likely wouldn’t stack off with, I felt that my best play was to check and try to induce a bluff. It worked to maximum effect, since he shoved with his busted flush draw, and I could quickly call.

I should mention that my play in this hand, particularly my final river check, somewhat contravenes a general no-limit principle: big hands deserve big pots. The bigger your hand is, the more likely you should be to bet it for value rather than try to induce a bluff with it. This is especially true if the pot is still small. The reasoning is simple. Big hands get more value from value bets, but win roughly the same amount when inducing a bluff. By checking my 99 here, I made it worth barely more than if I had T9 (which would have snapped off the bluff just the same). Whereas, if I had shoved with my hand instead, I would be much happier to have 99 than T9… I would be getting more value out of my big hand.

No doubt you’ve watched a hand that was set-over-set, but where the higher set failed to stack the lower set. That’s an example of what can go wrong if you get too trappy and bluff inducing with super strong hands. Big hands are better at getting value than smaller hands, and so you should be more inclined to use them to extract value and less inclined to try to induce bluffs with them.

However, in this hand it didn’t matter that much. The hands I thought I could win a big pot from, trips and made straights, are almost certain to bet and call an all-in checkraise. So I didn’t really lose my chance to extract value with my big hand by checking. But sometimes you do, and if that’s the case, think twice before turning your monster into a bluff catcher.

One final point. Sometimes in no-limit you don’t have to choose between going for value and inducing a bluff. Sometimes you can do both! If you make a small bet, like $20 into a $90 pot, you can induce a bluff-raise from an aggressive player with a busted draw. But you can also get at least a little bit of value those times your opponent has a weak pair and would have taken a free showdown. It’s still a trade-off, because if you had bet $60, you might have gotten more value for your hand. Nevertheless, the weak lead with the dual purpose of inducing bluffs and extracting a little value can be a strong play.

Playing out of position is tricky, and one of the trickier aspects is trying to figure out how to get the most value for your made hands. Think about your opponent’s range and his general playing style, think about checking and betting a few different-sized bets, and then decide which one will likely get you the best overall result.

Tags: aggressive play, betting for value, busted draws, inducing-bluffs, no-limit-holdem, playing out of position, poker, trapping play

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