I've been putting in a lot of time at the tables recently and am really working hard on increasing my hourly rate. One of the biggest things that I feel most players don't do is get max value from their good but not great hands on the river.

Far too often while playing live poker, I see players checking back on the river with a hand that ranks to be the best hand a high percentage of the time because they feel "the pot is big enough." The purpose of this article will be to make sure that you will not fall prey to this leak.

A simple example of this would be if we raise from late position with K-Q and the big blind calls. The flop comes Ks-8d-3s. Our opponent checks, we bet, and they call. The turn is the 9d. Our opponent checks, we bet, and they call. The river is the 2c. Our opponent again checks, and we simply table our hand showing top pair, 2nd kicker. Our opponent mucks and we comment "well, he probably had a flush draw and wasn't calling anyway. Either way, the pot was big enough." THIS THINKING IS WRONG! We need to be betting this river for value nearly 100% of the time. Sure, our opponent could have a busted draw, but they are very likely to have K-T, K-J, or even any random suited King that they defended their big blind with. All of these hands will put us on the busted draw and pay us off. For the more advanced players, there will be times where checking back this river is OK. This would be mostly when your opponent is very tricky and fearless, and is capable of reading your hand for a one pair type hand and check raise bluff the river to represent slow played hands such as sets and turned 2 pair like K-9 or 9-8 or flopped or turned sets. Luckily, you will rarely, if ever, see this in the $1-$2 and $2-$5 NL games at the casino.

When deciding to make river value bets, you should always ask yourself, "If I bet here, what hands will call me that I beat? Also, what hands will call me that beat me?" Once you answer these questions, if the number of hands that you beat is greater than the number of hands that you lose to, go ahead and make that river bet. Your sizing will largely depend on what you feel is your opponents most likely hand, and how much he would be willing to call with that hand. I'd suggest 50-60% of the pot vs. average opponents, but often near 100% of the pot vs. opponents who are weak but are calling stations who can't fold top pair ever.

Learning to value bet the river thinly also serves a dual purpose. When opponents at the table see you bet thinly at the river, you will start to get more light river calls that you may not have gotten before. Of course, sometimes you will bet the river for value and be called by a better hand, which you may hear referred to as "taking yourself to value town." This is OK. If you never take yourself to value town by making a thin value bet then you are probably missing a ton of value by not betting thin over a large sample of hands. In the long run, when all of your thin bets are averaged together, you will show a large profit increase because of these bets. Another positive about showing down a thin value river bet is that later your big hands will be called down much lighter by hands as weak as top pair with bad kickers in hopes that you are over valuing a second pair type hand.

Getting this bet in is the difference between having good and great sessions. Over the course of a year, this extra bet can boost your hourly rate significantly. So don't be afraid. Go ahead and get that extra value. It's there for the taking!

Good luck at the tables. Hope to see you all at the PokerAtlas Meetup and tourney at the Aria on December 13th!