A solid regular bets the river after the draws miss. Is middle pair enough?
Against good players, folding everything but strong hands is exactly what they want. The bet size tells you how much of their range can be bluffs.
The hand
$1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em, 9-handed. You have $350, the cutoff has $400. The cutoff is a solid regular: plays a sound, balanced game.
- You
- Button, Q♥T♥ (middle pair)
- Preflop
- The cutoff raises to $10. You call.
- Flop
- K♠J♥Q♠ (pot $23) The cutoff bets $10. You call.
- Turn
- 6♥ (pot $43) The cutoff checks. You check.
- River
- 4♣ (pot $43) The cutoff bets $30.
You have $30 to call into a $73 pot. What do you do?
How to think about it
1. Work out the price
You call $30 to win a pot that will be $103. So the call needs to win more than $30 ÷ $103 = 29.1% of the time to make money.
2. Use the bet size to estimate the bluffs
A well-balanced player sizes their river bets so you can't simply fold or call everything. A bet of $30 into $43 needs to work 29.1% of the time as a bluff, and a balanced player bluffs in about that proportion. So the real question is: does your hand beat their bluffs, and is this board one where bluffs exist?
3. List the draws that missed
The flop K-J-Q had two spades and lots of straight draws. The turn and river, a 6 and a 4, completed nothing. So the bettor can have missed spade draws and missed straight draws, which are natural bluffs.
4. Ask what you beat
You have queen-ten: a pair of queens on K-J-Q-6-4. You lose to any king, ace-ten and ten-nine (both straights), two pairs and sets. You beat every missed draw and the jacks. Is that enough of their betting range to beat 29.1%?
See the engine's answer
LevelUp's poker engine works out exactly what this player holds here, how often each option wins, and its dollar value against this opponent type. Play spots like this at an animated table, explain your reasoning, and find out which of your instincts are costing you money.
The takeaway
Against players who balance their bets, the size of the bet tells you how often they need to be bluffing. If your hand beats their bluffs, you often have to call.