River bet size question -- what's the right bet?

Do you make the money at the end of day 1? This information is relevant to your strategy. If you're near the money bubble you need to play overall more cautiously against covering stacks when you're a big stack.

Without knowing this I'll just make a few general notes.

Flop: I really prefer checking back here, especially if we're near the money bubble. This flop nails both the UTG range and BB 3-bet range, and it would be a disaster if you got check raised. Also I'm not sure why you said UTG checked to the raiser? BB would have been acting first so he should have already checked before UTG acted.

Turn: As played I don't completely hate the turn check back. I'm usually betting a flush here, but if you do occasionally slow play one the nut flush is the correct flush to do it with since it's less vulnerable to being drawn out on.

River: As played and given the action your opponent's hand doesn't seem to be particularly strong. I probably bet something like 1/2 pot.

It would be sick if he check raised all in on the river, but whatever. Your hand is way too strong to check back.

I think there's basically never a reason to bet that small in position on the river. If you think you have the best hand, get real value for it. If you're that unsure, check. If bet/folding is your plan, then betting small in position on the river shows weakness and encourages check-raise bluffs. It's not worth reopening the action to try to get a small bet in.

The hand in general:

What is UTG's stack size? This is important for considering how we play preflop. I guess calling is fine, 3-betting is sound too. Would feel a lot better about calling if we were on the actual button, but it did work out that way.

I think betting the flop this large is not good. The board is heavily connected and you are hitting the gas with a draw that you could either be pushed off of, or that you could have to put a ton of money in with and fold later in the hand. I don't think you need to bet this large to achieve any of your purposes. You could bet 15-20%, which is still enough to get some folds and to comfortably allow you to call a check-raise. Or you could check.

Checking the flush on the turn sometimes is fine, but... in this scenario, where I've already built the pot to be this big and have the nuts-- the one hand I'm fully comfortable getting all-in with-- I'm betting again. I'm not sure what size, though. Generally we don't want to bet too large with range in these spots, but when we have a hand this good and if we're playing opponents we don't need to worry about being balanced against, I might do just that and hope he finds a call.

River as played I'm getting on the larger side, whatever I would bluff with something like AhJx, whatever you think two pair and straights might call. 80% pot? I'm discounting a full house somewhat because villain also checked the river.

If I bet the flop and turn small, then I'm probably picking a more moderate river size, maybe half pot. If I bet large on the turn, then I might just check back the river.

This hand is funny.

Hmm pre- idk you set up a squeeze by calling. The 3! To 21k is terrible sizing by villian. Should be 28k at a min and prolly more like 32-40k especially oop. I’m fine with calling A6hh here but I lean more 3!/ fold this hand in position.

You get into so many dicey spots against better Ax when you flat. You also allow the blinds or button to come along. Much easier to win heads-up vs seeing a flop vs 3-4 villains. You also have the chips to 3! And fold without a 2nd thought.

Post- why are you leading this flop? It’s really bad if you ask me. You are going to get blown off your equity at times here. Just start with a x and either x call or x raise. Prolly a x call bc you are in big trouble if someone rips on you.

Turn- why are you not betting? Set up a bigger pot for River to get more value. You don’t need deception here. Get max value.

As played, prolly betting small on river. Maybe like 30-60% pot. I’m leaning 40% pot and pray villian has a straight they wanna raise.

Feel this hand is a great display of why most live tournament players are far too tight. Calling pre here is so blah. You are going to be spewing chips a lot when you run into better Ax. If you 3!, you get better hands like AJo or A-10o to fold pre (well they should). You also set up a nice spot in position where you can c bet small 1/4 pot a lot of board textures and really put pressure on. Cbet 1/4, bet turn 1/2 pot is going to get a lot of folds. Idc what the board is- we don’t need to just play face up. Still think calling a 3 bet pre here against 2 villians is not ideal. It’s even worse when we butcher the hand by donk leading the flop and don’t bet the turn when we hit our hand for max value.

You can event bet turn like 1/5 or 1/4 pot honestly and get called super often. Not betting turn is a huge mistake. When it checks to you on river- I would heavily discount boats. Would bet 40-50% like I said bc villian really doesn’t have a great hand based on action. You bet turn here bc it sets up a nicer river sizing. Not sure what villains stack size is but you also get the chance to set up a pot sized bet on the river if you bet turn. Deception is not needed here when stacks are prolly average 40-60 bb for whole tourny.

I think you might have missed that we are in position here in the CO against BB and UTG.

So he's not leading the flop. He's betting when checked to, which is much different. I still agree with you that a check is preferable, or bet smaller like Nath suggested.

On the turn I do agree that usually betting is best, but checking is not nearly as bad in position as it would be OOP. Sometimes we will induce our opponent to bet river thinking we don't have a flush, then we can jam over the top. OOP you just have to bet turn otherwise there's little chance of getting all the money in other than if it's a cooler flush over flush.

Ahh good point. Ok thought villian was donk leading flop. I think sizing down on flop bet is good. 1/3 to 1/2 pot is better than 2/3 pot. It’s gross when x raised in this spot bc not sure we wanna stack off unless we have some sort of straight draw along with flush draw.

Must bet turn if we bet flop and hit our golden card

Yeah I'm still leaning towards mainly checking back flop, because you don't particularly want to play a huge pot with a covering stack when you're presumably close to the money bubble. That is, you don't want to play a huge pot until you make the nuts on the turn. Haha.

Yawn, sigh here we go again--the schoolmarmish, admonishing, fingerwagging "dont bet river small" people, basing their opinion on nothing except being afraid of x raises

now we got a new bit of jargon here. "Real value". Whatever that means--which is nothing

OK something more constructive.

Here's a great toy game to illustrate that you can experiment with those cheeky small IP bets.

The folding behavior is non-linear; predictive models like the very simple ones I've tried way overestimate how they behave when you bet small, say 18%. They just can't bring themselves to fold.

In general though--they probably shouldn't really ever fold.

In some cases--people build ranges so transparently capped (poor range building in most instances) that maybe--they should almost always fold?

Obviously you need to be exploiting here is you're gonna dangle 1bb or something stupid out there.

But if you got a situation where you're assuming OOP is REALLY capped. So "weak" is their range, that the top of there's isn' even the 20th percentile of yours.

Maybe it's a common spot,maybe not, maybe that's totally game dependent, whatever.

I think in live events for sure you'll see other permuations of this more ideal case here:

Board: Ah9c5d8c8s

OOP: (really capped)

IP: (more intelligible; pretty passive line here with all the K-high and worse still in there, top pair too being checked back a tom)

Why should this person ever call here? Why should they ever be here in the first place? Zero EV before acting.

No matter how IP builds a range, he will be beating 70% or more of OOP. This is based on the equity distribution: OOP really is capped.

This seems like a very conservative assumption: I have seen literally today someone call my 1bb river bet with JT high.

This is clearly an incentive to milk as an exploit. He can't even credibly raise. He's just too capped. We pick up a 2% pot share gain in EV. You can't just dismiss that; you have to at least consider it.

I'm not saying this has to do with this hand though...

Submersible and I had a long back and forth exchange about this topic in another thread. I definitely think there's a time and a place for these small bets.

The biggest downside is the possibility that he's trapping. Or more specifically, the possibility that he check raises and we make the wrong decision and pay a big bet off for 10x+ what we stood to gain with the small bet. That or he check raises as a bluff and we fold the best hand, losing out on the entire pot while trying to milk an extra 10% out of it.

My general thinking is that the more clearly I can identify an obvious response to a check raise the more likely I am to go for a small milk bet in position. What I mean is it's a disaster if he check raises and we choose the wrong response. So I want to know either he is truly capped and never raising therefore this isn't a concern. Or... He may have some small percentage of traps, but if he raises he is never bluffing so we can just fold every time.

I don’t think you can be scared on the river of a raise. I think you go small bc the hand has played out in a manner where we don’t think he’s going to call a big bet on the river. I think you exploit bet like 1/4-1/2 pot and hope for a crying call. I don’t get trap vibes in this hand bc chips didn’t go in on the turn.

Now if you get to the river and get raised big- it’s an old type- sure you def can fold. I just don’t see it happening very often.

Since everything in this post describes exactly my response, I'll take it piece by piece:

This is an incredibly rude and dismissive way to talk about me. You know it is.

No, I'm basing it on "we have the nut flush, and we checked the turn for some reason, so even though the board is paired, our hand is firmly under-repped and our line looks weird; given those facts, we should be trying to get bigger calls from his most realistic bluff catchers instead of trying to get 20% pot from 100% of his range."

I'm not the one scared of check-raises. I specifically wrote this:

Because it's all true! An observant opponent will pick up if you are betting small for thin value as a pattern, and you are opening yourself up to more bluffs that way. And I think under-valuing / under-repping your hand and then folding to later action is generally usually a mistake.

Now, I have made plays like this from out of position to encourage more bluffs, but with the plan to call. Fake block-betting the ace of suit on a 4-flush paired board, for example. In spots where if I bet large and get raised, it sucks, but betting small encourages more bluffs and thus makes calling the raise profitable (and may also be the best way to get value for my hand).

And the part about reopening the action is heavily influenced by the stage of the tournament. We are near the end of day 1 with a large stack vs. a large stack. The ICM effects aren't necessarily stone-bubble or final-table heavy, but they are not insignificant either. (ETA: Knowing exactly how large the field is expected to be and when we expect to make the money would, of course, give us a much clearer picture of this. Big difference if we make the money if we make it through day 1, vs. a main-event field big enough that we don't make it until day 3 (or even 4, which I think is usually the case with the WSOP ME).

It means getting what our hand is actually worth from our hand, instead of trying to get tiny bets called. Even half pot on the river is so much better, and probably acceptable given how we've grown the pot already.

downside
disaster
wrong

that's 3 fearful words

Don't you realize how much fear you're packing in this statement?

And the last part? "Know". Dude, it's a game of imperfect information. You can literally never "know" anything; the entire point of the game is to make better guesses.

That's where much of the variance really comes from: not from getting rivered, but rather from the fact that you do NOT "know" anything and that even attempts to be more statistically rigorous all have their own flaws and complications (uh oh--maybe I'm getting fearful now 😮)

That expression of "want to know"--that's also fear.

3 fearful words and 1 fearful phrase.

No I wasn't rude. This is competition, and it's not the country club

Actually, the country club is MORE competitive than most places, including this one; those people just tend to disingenuously hide their desire to crush you behind a thin veneer of civility because in their games (business), collaboration and networking can increase their EV.

You think pro athletes are constantly patting each other on the back and whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears?

So what you call rudeness--I call competitiveness and bluntness. And neither of us are morally superior for that.

Demonstrate with a solver-based, node locking example.

Otherwise--you're just talking out your ass. Which doesn't even necessarily mean you're getting the wrong answer or that I'm right--boy aren't I setting myself up to look stupid!

But it does mean you get less credit for not showing your work.

None of this has to be so conjectural. That's what the solver and GTO framework enables. Make assumptions; it's a fundamental skill. It's 2026, let's fully use the tools we're fortunate to have.

To Jjou and eggs, I started doing the math by hand to try to demonstrate the danger of the small river bets in position (I mean when we're value betting incredibly thin, not here in this spot where we have close to the nuts).

Anyway it quickly became more complex than I had expected and my head started to spin. Example: If you're good 90% of the time but he has 10% traps, he'll call with the worst hands X% and raise with the traps always plus bluff X%... Yada yada.

So sorry no math or solver proof for you (yet) eggs.

Just to verbally state the results I was trying to demonstrate...

If you bet incredibly small in position for thin value, you better be confident that you will make correct decisions more often than not when faced with a large check raise (or be incredibly confident they never raise in that spot).

You're risking your existing pot share in addition to the small river bet amount when you reopen the action.

So while yes you can squeeze a little bit of value out. You can also cost yourself a lot of EV if you respond incorrectly to a check raise. That is if you fold and your opponent turns out to be bluffing much more often than you expected or if you call and they turn out to be value raising much more often than you had expected.

is extremely ****ing rude.

I'll dip out of this whole place before I put up with another mod talking to me this way.

So your social skills are so bad you don't understand any kind of middle ground between "fluffing someone" and "making incredibly insulting and gendered comments toward them"?

Do you even get that the problem isn't about telling me I'm wrong (which, since you misrepresented what I actually wrote, is shaky itself, but that's not the issue), but opening with such rude, condescending, and hostile language? Do you have the social skills to grasp that, at least?

I do not think it is calling for too much, as mods, to at least establish a baseline of respect for the tone of this forum and how we talk to posters. If you do, let me know!

No it's OK I fold.

But not as an apology.

I am not "sorry" for being brusque on the internet.

I give more to this place than it returns to me; there is NOTHING you could teach me.

So you can have this place.

I quit.

Eggs how many tournaments you played this year both online and live ?

You clearly put a load of , 'mostly irrelevant'
, analysis into this fairly trivial spot, just curious why ?

In general, I think a winning strategy for poker weighs and evaluates 1) the math of the hand 2) the math of the game (icm, risk of ruin, rebuy) and 3) the psychological factors of the players involved. I hope Eggs and Nath continue to post here because they are both very strong with the math of hand.

I understand some snark over disagreements but anytime someone shares their thoughts on why they do something is useful. Whether I agree with the ultimate conclusion does not negate the value of learning how other players who study the game think.

No rage quitting allowed Eggs. Sorry,

Your contribution will be missed mate and if you dive into another thread in future in any capacity it will be welcome

Fwiw we have hard rules on 2+2 that mods don’t dis other mods and this did happen here

I’ve read both views and just can’t see that either is 100% right or wrong - especially given the turn

To me this entire thread should be honed in on that turn decision

Anyway, love your work Eggs, even if I only understood half of it 😃

I've been away (sorry). Thanks so much for the discussion. It helps to hear differing perspectives. Sorry for messing up the description of the hand in the original post -- hard sometimes to recall exactly a live hand. Suffice to say that I was in position against the villain after the post-flop action. He had a stack similar to mine - we were both in very good shape. THe tournament did not make the money until a few hours into day 2, so this was not an ICM situation. It was a situation where we were both at risk of chipping down to an average-ish stack, or chipping up to a top 10 stack.

I get the commentary about checking back the turn when I hit the nut flush. As I look back on it, my chunky bet on the flop with just the nut flush draw (an attempt to take down the pot right there) probably left villain with the impression that I either flopped something big like 2-pair or a set, or I was betting on the flush draw. But his call of my 41K flop bet tells me that he has a made hand or a flush draw of his own. If he has a made hand -- having called the pre-flop 3-bet and then called my flop lead -- it's likely a King or maybe a combo draw like QJ or QT. If he had a hand good enough to call 41K (2/3 pot), he likely still has a good enough hand to call a turn bet. I'm not worried about him making a straight or two-pair on the river, so I probably could have extracted meaningful chips on the turn, which would have made him even more likely to call a river bet. So, I agree that I missed value there.

As played, I bet 80K on the river. Villain went deep into the tank for 6-7 minutes (the tournament was on break, and the tournament director was not going to start the break clock until all the hands were finished). He said to himself as he contemplated the call that I seemed "scared" of the flush card on the turn. Eventually, he called and mucked when I announced the flush.

I ended up with the #3 stack at the end of the night (day 1B) and the #7 stack going into day 2. Finished 20th. That hand was a nice boost, but I felt that I left value on the table, and the discussion confirms that I did. Lesson learned.

Again, thanks to all for the discussion.

With day 2 locked in if you just survive level 15, I'm checking back river here 100% of the time. You've got a top 5 stack with nothing to gain from a bluff that could go wrong. The EV of keeping your stack intact for day 2 way outweighs whatever thin value you might extract.

You call a river bet both a bluff and thin value. Which is it?

We have the ace-high flush, so frankly I don't think it's either.