In order to be a winning poker player you must make more money from your winning hands than you lose from your losing hands. One of the many aspects of ensuring that you make as much from your winning hands as possible is value betting. In short a value bet is a bet when you feel you are ahead in the hand and you want to bet an amount that you think your opponent will call. There are two different situations when you should make a value bet. The first situation is when you are sure you are ahead and are trying to extract the maximum value from your opponent for the hand. The second situation is when you’re holding a fairly solid hand and are unsure of what your opponent is holding. Even though you are unsure a value bet in the situation is often the right play as we will show you.

When you are ahead value betting is very simple. You are trying to bet the maximum amount that you feel your opponent will call. Value bets are often smaller bets that make your opponent feel like they are priced in and they must call, when in reality you are very far ahead in the hand. For example, if you are holding pocket eights and the board after the river shows (3,4,9,A,8) with no flush draws you are very likely to have the best hand. If you think your opponent has an ace you can likely make a large value bet and still get called. Value betting with the best hand is an art form and you really need to know your opponents and be able to put them on a hand to get the maximum value from your bets. Against highly skilled players making a very large over bet on the river may actually be the best value bet you can make because the skilled players may look at this bet as an attempt to steal the pot. Your opponents may not have called a half pot or pot sized bet, but since you over bet the pot they may consider calling. These are the best value bets when they work because you make a very large return.

The second situation when you should make a value bet is when you don’t really know where you are in the hand, but you have a good enough hand that you would call your opponents bet on the river. The easiest way to explain this type of value bet is through an example. Let’s say you have (Q,Q) and the flop is (Q,K,2). You bet and your opponent calls. The turn brings a J. Once again you bet and your opponent calls. The river brings a 10, making the board (Q,K,2,J,10), which means an Ace makes a straight and beats your set of queens. In this situation your opponent could very well have (A,K), (A,J) or (A,10), all of which beats you, but they could also have a pair of kings or two pairs (K,J) or (K,10) which you beat. You feel like if you check and your opponent bets you would make the call. In this situation it is smart to make a value bet when acting first. Consider the following ways the hand could play out:

You bet and your opponent folds. You have the best hand and you win nothing extra on the river. You bet and your opponent calls. You have the best hand and you win 1 bet on the river. You bet and your opponent reraises. You fold and you lose 1 bet on the river.

You check and your opponent checks. You have the best hand and you win nothing extra on the river. You check and your opponent bets. You call and you win or lose 1 bet on the river.

As you can see if you are planning to call if your opponent bets then there is no benefit to checking. You should bet out because your opponent could easily call with a worse hand. If your opponent raises then you have to assume they have the straight and you fold, losing your one bet. By checking you are giving your opponent the option to check with a hand they would have had to call you with had you bet. This is a tricky situation, but as you can see a value bet in this situation would pay off in the long run.

Value betting is a very important and difficult aspect of poker and one that improves with experience. The more poker you play the better the feel you will have for your opponents and how much they would be willing to call. If you can extract more money from your opponents with the winning hand than they can extract from you, you will be a winning poker player.

Other Advanced Texas Hold'em Poker Strategy:

Being Aware of Future Hammer Bets

Playing Tournaments with Huge Fields

Continuation Betting

Implied Odds

Taking Down the Table Bully