What does sudden river aggression mean?
A quiet player suddenly goes ballistic on the river, is this a bluff or value, most of the time?
A student ran two hands by me—you know him, he is the smaller name on some well-known book covers.
In both spots, he was the Button against the blinds. He flopped top pair on boards with straight and flush draws on them. They checked, he bet, and they called. The turn brought a connecting card, they checked, he bet, and they called.
Both times on the river, another connecting card came, putting lots of big hands out there, and both times his opponent shoved into him for way more than the pot.
Both times he folded, and both times they showed him a monster (well done, Tea Boy).
"They always have it..."
Barry (it was Barry if it wasn't clear) ran the spots by me and asked about these sudden overbet shoves seemingly from nowhere. He wondered, was this:
- Villain realising they should have put more money in before the river and are overcompensating now, or
- Was Barry potentially being exploited in some way?
It was the first one, usually.
Sudden extreme aggression on the river weighs heavily towards a very strong hand trying to make up for lost time. Once in a while, it's a missed draw on a kamikaze mission, but most of the time it's right to overfold here.
If you find yourself being the overly aggressive player on the river, ask yourself: Are you check/raising enough? You don't have to worry about 2x potting the river if you have built a bigger pot on earlier streets.
Having a mantra of "they always have it" in spots like this will not be a huge mistake.
You can get Dara's free book on effective poker study by joining his mailing list.
