Poker mistakes we used to make - river check/raises
"A river check/raise is never a bluff" was once good advice...until we consulted the solvers, says Dara O'Kearney.
Ahead of my new upcoming book on GTO, I have been writing about some of the wonky advice we used to follow that solvers have disproven. Previously I have spoken about how we overvalued set mining, worried too much about domination and didn't appreciate backdoor hands enough.
Today I wanted to discuss some old school advice that remains true in a lot of games, but not all of them. The advice used to go that a river check/raise is never a bluff.
Things elite poker players used to believe (pre solvers)
1. Worried far more about domination than they should have
2. Overrated set mining
3. Blockers weren’t a thing in NLH (only PLO)
4. Backdoors didn’t matter much
5. Limping always terrible (especially from small blind) pic.twitter.com/KqYh8pBtva— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) September 28, 2022
Useful advice in many games...but not all of them
This is still useful advice, especially in soft tight games, but the solvers have shown us the best spots for a river check/raise bluff and good players have caught onto it.
We have arrived at a river and the board reads A A K 3 Q.
Good hands to check/raise for value here are the hands that unblock your opponent's value range. 33/QQ and JT would all be good value check/raises because you would expect your opponent to value bet Ax and Kx, which you unblock.
Showdown hands with a blocker
It’s hard to pick check/raise bluffs but they are best made up of hands that have OK showdown value until your opponent bets, but you have a blocker.
Good check/raise bluffs on this board would include hands like TT/JJ and QJ. They are likely ahead but block hands that value bet, so you are more likely to be up against a bluff.
TT will sometimes be ahead when you check and your opponent checks behind, but when they bet you no longer like the hand. TT, however, blocks AT and JT making it a much better bluff than 99 which doesn’t block anything.
There are many games where a river check/raise is never a bluff, but against good players you will face opposition with a balanced river check/raise range. You need to know this in the modern game to avoid exploitation.
Dara O'Kearney's latest book Endgame Poker Strategy is out now.
