$5/$10
No Limit Holdem
6 players
Stacks:
UTG fakker11 (
$1594.00)
UTG+1 GIVEmeSOME99 (
$815.00)
CO traheho (
$1062.00)
BTN Bttech86 (
$1000.00)
SB Hero ($1095.00)
BB zero2lose ($2772.75)
Pre-flop: (
$15, 6 players)
Hero is SB
4 folds,
Hero raises to $40, zero2lose calls $30
Flop:

(
$80, 2 players)
Hero bets $60, zero2lose calls $60
Turn: 
(
$200, 2 players)
Hero bets $160, zero2lose calls $160
River: 
(
$520, 2 players)
Hero checks,
zero2lose bets $435,
Hero folds
$5/$10
No Limit Holdem
6 players
Stacks:
UTG MezmerizePLZ ($995.00)
UTG+1 Floyd1479 (
$1012.00)
CO AndrewBoccia (
$3129.70)
BTN nobbi745 ($408.00)
SB Hero ($1217.00)
BB jullle (
$1803.80)
Pre-flop: (
$15, 6 players)
Hero is SB
MezmerizePLZ raises to $30,
2 folds, nobbi745 calls $30,
Hero calls $25,
1 fold
Flop:

(
$100, 3 players)
Hero bets $70, MezmerizePLZ calls $70,
1 fold
Turn: 
(
$240, 2 players)
Hero bets $160, MezmerizePLZ calls $160
River: 
(
$560, 2 players)
Hero checks, MezmerizePLZ checks
Hero shows:
Hero wins $557 ( won +$297 )
MezmerizePLZ lost -$260.00
nobbi745 lost -$30.00
These hands have a few things in common:
1. I have a good
made hand.
2. I'm out of
position.
3. The board has coordinated itself in such a way where I have the worst hand a very significant percentage of the time.
4. My
image is kinda weak. By weak I mean I don't really have a developed aggressive image, and they probably expect me to be playing pretty straightforward in these spots. No
history of note.
5.
Villain is a tough and solid reg.
6. They are spots where (i think) its a decision between betting or check/folding. I didn't see
c/c as being an
option in either.
I have shown these hands to several people who's opinions I much respect, and they have said that they are both easy bets. But I can't understand why.
I feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of poker, but one thing that I have never fully got was thin valuebetting. Especially
thin value betting vs good players when there's not a ton of spewy history. It seems to me like when I bet AK in the first hand, its like I'm basically just praying that he makes a big mistake vs my range and calls with worse, and if he doesn't, then guess what I just made a spewy bet. I think this is a legitimate worry, because we are dealing with a player I believe is playing pretty damn well, so odds are, he figures to play pretty
well to my bet.
But the
flip side of the dilemma is that if I don't bet in these spots, they don't even get the opportunity to make a mistake to begin with.
Thoughts?
Sauce123's Reply
Renton - First hand bet like 110 bucks if you want, but make sure he ends up calling and feeling owned and not like ur a passive fish he can shit all over.
Note: If he starts bluffjamming rivers that's just another game of rock paper scissors you can win. Don't be handcuffed by traditional thinking, solid players turn out to play poorly when you test them and trick them and tilt them and exploit them.
Hand 2 is a much clearer value bet because ur leading range is more nebulous to mezz. He can either look you up REALLY light or fold, but think of board texture and how extremely rarely he has a hand better than yours: and then think of the tiny number of combo draws which get to the river and have you beat. Which leads me to my 2nd reason why you should make "thin" value bets. There's a lot of spots in aggressive high stakes poker games where a certain line basically screams that your opponent has mid level nonsense to absolute dogshit. You can reverse read hands and realized the 34th nuts is actually the 1st nuts given certain action barring some insane level your opponent is pulling which hes not. this is one of those spots, so bet!