However, this does not necessarily mean that the river is an easier round to play. The river can become very tricky as players will either ‘have it’ or they won’t, and so the players that don’t make the hands that they were hoping for will sometimes make one last effort to try and take down the pot with a big bluff. Therefore to play the river well, you should always think about all of the information you have gathered from each street in the hand you played against your opponent up until this point to help influence your decisions.

How To Play The River
As I just mentioned, you have to think about the way your opponent has played the hand on each street to help inform your decision on how to play on the river. The more information you have, the more pieces to the puzzle you can fit together to build a bigger picture of what your opponent may be holding. By the river it is often likely that your opponent will have given off enough information through the way they have played to indicate what kind of hand they are holding, so it is just a case of thinking through the hand and looking for it.

If your opponent has been playing as if they had a drawing hand on each street, and then comes out with a bet when the river comes with a card that could not have helped them, you can be fairly sure that they are bluffing be happy to call their bet if you have a decent hand. Similarly, if an opponent has been playing very aggressively on previous streets by betting and raising but plays very weakly on the river by checking, you can happily sense they are trying to trap you and trying to induce a bluff.

Playing the river can be a lot easier if you have position over your opponent. Acting after your opponent will prove to be a huge advantage on the river because you can see how your opponent reacts before making your final decision. When you reach the river you will be in one of the following situations regarding the strength of your hand:

• You are confident you have the best hand
• You are confident you have the worst hand
• You are unsure about whether you have the best hand

The first two situations are easier to play in, both in and out of position, but things can become very tricky when you are not sure about whether or not you have the best hand. So here is a quick guide on how to play in or out of position when in each of the situations mentioned above.

In Position

• You are confident you have the best hand
  If you are confident you have the best hand, you will want to get as much money from your opponent as possible. This means that you should definitely bet and raise to get more and more money into the pot. It is better to make big pot-sized bets on the river rather than smaller bets to try and entice your opponent into calling. It will be more profitable to make big bets even if your opponent calls less often, as it is explained in the article on maximizing value.
• You are confident you have the worst hand
  When you feel that you have the worst hand, you should be happy to fold the majority of bets your opponent makes on the river. It is unlikely that opponents will bet into you out of position with a poor hand, so always lean toward folding rather than raising in an attempt to bluff. If your opponent checks to you, you are now faced with the tough decision of whether or not to bluff. It is in these instances that you should use all the information from the way your opponent has played up until this point to decide whether a bluff is likely to work. Always try and be at least 80% sure that a bluff will be successful before making one, and fold if you have any doubts in your mind at all.
• You are unsure about whether you have the best hand
  Now this is where things can become tricky, but at least in this situation we still have position over our opponent. If our opponent checks to us, then we should almost always check behind them and turn the cards over to see who has won. This is because if you ever bet in this position, it is unlikely that you will get a call from a player that we have beat, but it is likely that we are going to get a call from a player that has us beat. So just check it down and hope that your hand is the winning one after they have been turned over.

If our opponent is betting into us, once again we have to make the decision about whether or not we should call based upon the information we have gathered from previous betting rounds. You may also need to factor in the odds that your opponent is giving you to call, because if your opponent makes a very small bet, you may well be given the correct odds to call because of the likelihood that your hand will sometimes win. But at the end of the day, there are no concrete rules for these situations and it is just a part of poker that will take time, patience and a thorough understanding of the game to master.

Out Of Position

• You are confident you have the best hand
  It is nice to feel that you have the best hand, but unfortunately we do not have position to help maximize our winnings in these situations. If you feel that your opponent has a half decent hand, you should look to make a decent bet and hope that they will call, as it is not likely that they will bet if they are unsure about whether they have the best hand.

If you think that your opponent missed a draw and has a very weak hand, it may be more profitable to bet in an attempt to induce a bluff. If you bet and it turns out they have no hand at all, then you are not going to win any more money because they are just going to fold. If you check however, you are giving them the opportunity to make a bluff and squeeze out that little extra money from them at the end.

• You are confident you have the worst hand
  It’s pretty unfortunate to have the worst hand and be out of position, but its not all that bad. At least in these situations you will have a clear idea about what to do… check and fold to any action. It is rarely a good idea to try and bluff when out of position in these spots, so save your money for another time. Only bet if you are incredibly sure that you can get your opponent off the hand, otherwise betting out here is not going to be profitable at all.
• You are unsure about whether you have the best hand
  Although this might seem like a bit of a dilemma, its not as bad you think. The last thing you want to do here is bet out… its one of the biggest mistakes you can make in poker when you think about it logically. When you bet out not knowing if you have the best hand or not, you are only going to get calls from hands that beat you, and you are not going to get calls from hands that you are beating. It is a completely lose-lose situation, so never bet out if you are unsure about whether you hold the best hand or not.

The only hard part in these spots is when your opponent comes back at you with a bet. In these situations you have to once again consider the way the hand has been played out up to that point, as well as think about they way your opponent has been playing in other hands as well as this one. If you think you have a decent chance of winning because your opponent is loose and bluffs frequently, then you have a good reason to call. However if you are not confident that you are ahead, you should be looking to fold unless you are being given good enough pot odds to make the call to see if you are ahead. It’s all about practice and a good knowledge of your opponent’s playing style.

Other River Tips

• Don’t bet on the river if you are unsure about whether or not you have the best hand. I know I have mentioned it before, but it is something that you should always remember. You are only going to get a call from a better hand and a fold from a worse hand, so don’t make that bet!
• Always think about each play that led up to this point into the hand, and use it to influence the decisions that you make on the river. There is no better tell than the way an opponent has played their hand and the information they have given you by the way they have checked, bet or raised.
• Always bet around the size of the pot when you want a call when you hold the best hand. Even though you may well get called less often than if you made small bets, you will be winning more in the long run. Its more profitable to win $50 1 in 10 times than it is to win $5 8 out of 10 times.

How to use Implied Odds?
The best way to explain how to use implied odds is to use an example. Let us say that you are on a flush draw and there is only one other person in the hand. They bet the flop and you call. They bet the turn and you call. You then hit your flush on the river. They then check to you and then you bet. They may or may not call but the point is you have not received good value for making the calls.

Another example is when there are three cards of the same suit on the board and you have the ace of that suit. Your opponent fires a large bet at you and you call. The turn card gives you the nut flush and your opponent checks. It is very unlikely at this point that you win any more money from this pot. If you miss your flush on the turn that means that you are going to be faced with another large bet.

These two examples above show you that playing drawing hands that look dangerous to your opponent isn’t a good idea. As soon as the danger card comes they are going to be scared off and be hesitant to wards contributing to the pot any more. The idea behind implied odds is that you want to continue to be paid off once you hit your draw. This is where the value of calling a bet comes in when you don’t necessarily have the pot odds to do so.

An example of a situation on where you will receive implied odds worthy of playing against your pot odds calculation is when you have an open ended straight draw. The key here is that your hand can be disguised a lot better than what a flush can. When you hit your draw your opponent is likely to keep betting into you. If your opponent has a strong hand like two pair, a set or even top pair with a solid kicker you can easily be paid off here. When you make your draw bet it aggressively and more often than not you will be rewarded nicely for it.

These examples that we have just taken you through should give you a clear idea of the fundamentals of implied odds. Much of the concept is based around the ‘feel’ of how the hand is going to turn out. The more you play and begin to understand the concept the better you will get at being able to judge what type of hands will pay you off. The key to using implied odds is to play hands that your opponents will find hard to put you on. If they have trouble putting you on a certain type of draw then this is when you will be paid off the best.

Closing Thoughts
Some poker players like to use strictly a math based game or one based on gut instinct. If you like to use a mixture of both like many players to than it is important to understand this basic concept. Put simply, if you have great implied odds you can ignore the pot odds. If you don’t have great implied odds then it is time to make you decision based on your pot odds calculation.

Play always moves clockwise and starts with the players seated after the dealer button (typically represented by a plastic disk). The two players to the left of the ‘dealer’ must post a big blind and small blind respectively. The blind is a bet that is made without players having seen, or even been dealt their cards. This is done to commence betting and build the pot. Player’s hole cards are then dealt (face down), with the player to the left of the big blind opening betting proceedings.

Call, Raise or Fold
At this time, players can either call (match the amount of the big blind), raise (increase the bet to a given amount) or fold (return their cards to the dealer and have no more play in this round). Play moves clockwise until all players have placed/matched an equal amount into the pot, or have folded. Once play is complete, the community cards are dealt.

The Flop
In Texas Holdem three cards are then dealt, face up and players can make their strongest hand using any combination of the community cards and their hole cards. Another round of betting commences.

Check, Raise or Fold
In this (and subsequent) rounds of betting, players can check (effectively make a bet of zero; staying in the pot), raise or fold. Naturally if a player has raised, the following player cannot check, so can either call, raise or fold. After a round of betting another community card is dealt.

The Turn
After the forth community card is dealt, another round of betting commences. Players can once again, check (if no one has opened the betting), call, raise or fold. After a round of betting is complete a final community card is dealt.

The River
After the fifth and final community card is dealt a final round of betting commences. Once again, players can check, call (if betting has opened), raise or fold.

The Showdown
If, after the final round of betting after the river, there are two or more people left in the pot, all players must declare their hand and show their cards. The player with the strongest hand using the five strongest cards available wins the pot. After the showdown, the cards are collected, the dealer button, big and small blinds move one seating position clockwise and the players now on the big and small blinds must make their forced bets. Then the cards are shuffled and dealt for another hand.

If at any time throughout any of the rounds of betting, all players fold leaving only one remaining, then the remaining player wins the pot and does not have to show his/her winning hand.

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