Don’t Fold the Winning Hand
One of the most costly mistakes you can make in limit Hold’em is folding the winning hand on the river. You should always realize that you are get-ting significant pot odds to call. If there is $24 in the pot and you face a $4 bet, you only need to win once every seven times for calling to be correct. With the good pot odds, calling on the river is usually correct if you feel you have some chance of winning, the hand. The river is not the time to show your great hand reading skills and attempt to make a great fold, unless you are extremely confident in your reading ability and knowledge of your opponent. On the other hand, don’t waste bets just to see your opponent’s hand when it is obvious that you are beat. Let’s look at some general considerations to help you determine if calling is correct. One important  consideration is the type of opponent you are against. You can fold your weak hands with more confidence against a tight player who never bluffs than if you are against a tricky player who is not so straight-forward. Against these tricky players, evaluate all of the betting sequences in the hand to help determine if you have some chance of winning.
Another important consideration is whether or not the bettor could have been on a draw. An opponent playing a board of A♣ 9♦ 4♥ 2♠ is likely to have a decent hand: however, opponents might be playing a draw with flops that are two- or three-suited or contain two connected or even two gapped cards. A weak hand can win if your opponent is betting a busted draw. For example, in a $10-$20 game you get a free play in the big blind against two early callers with 6♣ 2♣ and a T♣ 9♣ 3♦ flop. You decide to bet out as a semi-bluff into your two opponents and one of them calls. The turn card is the 4♦. You decide to bet again and your opponent calls. The river card is the 2♥. You check and your opponent bets.

You will lose if your opponent has any pair, but you should call against most types of opponents since they could have played an overcard, flush, or straight draw such as K♥ J♠, Q♦ J♦, or A♣ 7♣. You only need to win once every six times in this particular example for calling to be profitable. When there are no obvious flush or straight draws on the board, you need to try to determine the strength of your opponent’s hand. Does he have top pair or better? Is it possible that he was betting only overcards? Is it possible that he was betting a low pair? Evaluate all the betting sequences in the hand preflop, flop, and on the turn to help you determine his possible hands. Once you have narrowed down the possibilities, you can evaluate the probability that your hand will win. Even with a small probability of winning, you might be justified in calling if you are receiving the proper pot odds. Do not outsmart yourself and throw away the winning hand on the river. Folding the winning hand on the river is one of the most costly mistakes you can make as you lose the entire pot!

Folding to Save Bets
The above section showed that it is often correct to call on the river rather than losing the entire pot for one more bet; however, sometimes you need to fold to save bets when it is obvious that you have a losing hand. Many players have a natural curiosity and want to see their opponent’s winning hand just to know how they got beat. Don’t just call because you want to know whether he hit a set or the flush.Curiosity is a good poker player’s worst enemy when it starts costing you a full bet on the river. Remember, a good player expects to make about one big bet an hour. If you call on the river one time per hour when you shouldn’t, you are wiping out your entire win rate. The tricky part is determining when you should fold. Use the same reasoning presented in the "Don’t Fold the Winning Hand" section to determine whether or not calling is justified. Again, the type of opponent, type of board, and betting sequences should help you in your decision. If all of these considerations indicate with a high degree of certainty that your opponent has a better hand, you need to fold to save that bet; however, always consider the pot odds before deciding. One important consideration when deciding whether to call or fold is the number of opponents involved in the hand. The more opponents you are against, the more likely it is that you need a strong hand to win. This is especially true when there has been a bet and a call on the river. You must have a much stronger holding calling the river against two opponents than you would need against only one. If there were several opponents on the flop or turn with lots of raises, this also indicates that someone has a strong hand. Also, generally fold against an opponent who bets out into several players on the river with a scary board. In heads-up situations, opponents might try a bluff, but against two or more players, bluffing is not very common on the river.

Let’s look at a common example when folding on the river is correct. You hold A♠K♥ in early position and raise. A middle player and the button call while the blinds fold. The flop is A♣ 9♣ 5♦. You bet, the middle player raises, the button calls, and you reraise with everybody calling. The turn is the 2♥. You bet and everybody calls. The river is the 6♣. You bet, the middle player calls, and now the button player raises. What should you do? The most likely holding for this player is a flush, or maybe a small chance of either two pair or a set, but in either case you should fold since| he has at least a pair beat. Advanced Concept: Whenever the flop is two-suited and there is more than one opponent playing to the river, there is a decent probability that one of them is on a flush draw. This is especially true when they couldn’t be drawing to overcards or a straight. In the example above, the button player called a raise preflop and then called a raise on the flop. What are his likely holdings? A bet and a raise on the flop dearly indicate that one of his opponents has at least a pair of aces. If the button player has an ace, the middle player probably has the flush draw. Even if all three players have an ace, it is doubtful a button player would try a raise on the river with only a pair of aces against two opponents.

Let’s look at another common example. You hold A♥ A♠ and raise in early position. The middle player and button call again. The flop is the A♣ T♣ 5♣. You bet and both players call. The turn is the 6♥. You are worried about a made flush, but you bet because you do not want to give a free card. Both opponents call. The river is the 2♣. You are beat. You might think, "I can’t fold a set of aces," but you can! Save the bet! If you were heads up, you would need to call against some opponents and fold against others. Some lone opponents might try a bluff with this scare card, while others would only bet with the flush. Against two opponents with this type of flop, at least one of them had a flush draw. Other examples that might give a strong indication that you are beat are when four parts to a straight appear or if a card is paired on the river. The previous betting sequences may indicate that you have the losing hand with these types of boards. For example, let’s say four players call to the river and you were betting on every street with AK. The board on the river is KT52T and the small blind bets out. A player betting into three opponents will almost always have trip tens. If he bets into two opponents, you probably should still fold. If he bets into you heads up, you might need to call, unless you have a great read on your opponent and know he would only bet trip tens. Be sure not to fold a winning hand, but don’t make silly calls when you know you are beat. Save those bets!

 
Betting or Raising to Gain Bets
A common mistake made by many players is betting or raising the river whenever they think they have the best hand. Do not make this same mistake! Advanced Concept: Only bet or raise a good hand on the river against a lone opponent when you have at least a 50% chance of winning when your opponent calls. The key part of this advanced concept is when your opponent calls. Many times you will bet the river and your opponent folds. That bet hasn’t gained you anything. Let’s look quickly at an example. You hold Q♥ Q♠ with a K♣ 5♣ 2♥ 4♠ 8♦ board. You bet out on the flop and are called. You bet out on the turn and are called. You determine that the most likely holding for this opponent is a flush draw. Should you bet the river? The answer is no, since your opponent will fold if he was on a flush draw. Betting will gain you nothing. A better option would be to induce a bluff by checking.

Many opponents with a busted draw may see your check as a sign of weakness and won’t be able to resist betting as a last chance bluff to win the pot. In this case, checking gains you a bet while betting out probably gains you nothing. On the other hand, if you are against an aggressive player who tends to call too often with weak pairs, then it is probably correct to bet. It is unlikely your opponent holds a pair of kings since an aggressive opponent probably would have raised either the flop or turn. He most likely would have raised a flush draw also at some point. In this situation, betting could be correct since you will win over 50% of the time when your opponent calls with a weak pair. The reasoning however is different. You check if you believe your opponent was on a draw, and you bet if you are reasonably confident, that your opponent will call with a hand weaker than a pair of kings.

You need more than a 50% chance of winning when there is the risk that your opponent could raise with a better hand and you would call. In this case, you might lose two big bets against a very good hand and only win one bet against a weak hand, so you need more than a 50% chance of winning to justify this risk. For example, if you have roughly a 50% chance of winning a showdown but there is a 5% chance your opponent would raise and a 70% chance he would win when raising, you should just check and call rather than betting out. For example, you hold KQ with a K548T board. You believe there is a 10% chance your opponent holds KQ, a 30% chance of KJ, a 20% chance of KT, and a 40% chance he would fold his other hands if you bet. You rarely would have a read this specific, but it is shown for example. Should you check or bet? Let’s play this hand 10 times and look at the scenarios. If you bet first, four times you will win when he folds but gain nothing, once you will split and gain nothing, three times you will win a big bet, and twice you will lose two big bets when your opponent raises two pair. Your net result is minus one big bet for an overall negative expectation. Remember, the money in the pot is already yours if you have the best hand, so you don’t include this in your analysis. Now let’s look at the results when you check, assuming that your opponent will bet any pair of kings and check anything else. Four times you gain nothing when he checks, you split once, and you win a bet three times against KJ. and you lose a bet two times against KT. The overall result is plus one bet for a positive expectation. It is actually more profitable to check this hand. It would be even more profitable if you induce some bluffs by getting your opponent to bet an inferior hand that he would have folded if you had bet.

You had a 50% chance of winning a bet in a showdown, but because of the risk that your opponent might raise, you were better off just checking and calling in this
example. Things get more complicated if you take away the assumption that your opponent would bet any pair of kings. Some opponents may not bet a hand that
they would call with. In the example, some opponents might not bet KJ if you check. In this case, you are better off betting out even though you have a negative
expectation on. the bet. Do you see why? You actually lose more by checking and calling if your opponent will only bet two pair. To summarize, there are several considerations you must make when betting into a lone opponent on the river with a good hand:
• Probability that you will win in a showdown (should be at least 50%)
• Probability that your opponent would raise and you would call
• Probability that your opponent would bet a weaker hand if you check but fold
this hand if you come out betting
• Probability that your opponent would check a losing hand that he would call
with if you bet

Expanding on the second point, sometimes your opponent will raise and you will fold. This doesn’t necessarily make your river bet incorrect. For example, you hold
AA against a known opponent and a board of AKQ5T. Betting in this situation would be correct if you know that your opponent would only raise with the jack but would call with two pair and you are unsure if he would bet two pair if you check. If you bet and he raises, you can safely fold, losing the same amount as checking and calling. If you bet and he calls with two pair, yon gain a bet. Your expectation is the same when he has the jack, but you gain a bet when he doesn’t. Advanced Concept: Sometimes it is correct to bet into a scary board on the river with a strong hand if you can safely fold when you are raised This rule does not apply against tricky opponents, if you are against an opponent who will bluff raise or do other things to try to win the pot, the decision process is a little more complicated. In this case, you need to compare the various probabilities of all of the possible scenarios:

• The probability of him calling and you winning the bet
• The probability that he will raise and you will lose two bets
• The probability that he will raise and you will win two bets
• The probability that if you check he would bet a hand he would not have originally called with I realize that this can get quite complicated, so you just have to use your best judgment in the heat of the action.

Another option when acting first on the river is to check-raise. There are two reasons to try a check-raise with a strong hand on the river:

• To induce a bluff.
• To gain more bets when you are confident that an opponent will bet and call your raise.

For example, you hold Q♦ J♦ with a board of K♦ T♣ 5♥ 7♦ 2♦. Your opponent raised your flop bet and bet the turn, so you are fairly certain he will bet the river. This would be a good time for a check-raise to try and gain two bets. This scenario would be different however if the board was K♦ T♣ 7♦ 5♥ 2♦. Do you
see why? In this case, the bettor may be worried that you were on a flush draw since the flop was two-suited. A check-raise in this case might backfire if your
opponent decides to check. You lose a bet if he would have called. Check-raises also gain you nothing if your opponent doesn’t call your raise but would have called your bet.

Let’s look at another situation quite similar. Most opponents are reluctant to bet when a scare card falls on the river that makes the board four-suited or fourconnected, or pairs a key card, especially top pair; therefore, it is usually best to go ahead and bet into your opponent with a strong hand to try and gain at least one bet. Most opponents will call a bet to ensure you are not bluffing but are reluctant to bet and risk a check-raise.

Advanced Concept: Check-raising is risky when the board would scare your opponents from betting; therefore, usually bet out to gain at least one bet.
For example, check-raising is risky when holding A♦ T♥ and a board of K♦ T♣ 7♦ 5♦ 2♦. You should probably not try a check-raise in this scenario except against an extremely aggressive and maniac opponent. Most opponents would never bet this board on the river unless they have the A♦ or Q ♦; however, most opponents would call a bet to make sure you aren’t bluffing. One more situation that occurs on the river is when you are against several opponents and are faced with a bet and you have a very strong hand. Sometimes consider just calling rather than raising your strong hands to get the remaining opponents to call. This is especially true if there is even a small chance that the bettor has the nuts and will reraise or there is a good chance you might split the pot with the bettor.
For example, if you hold Q♣ T♦ with a J♥ T♠ 9♦ 8♣ 5♦ board, you should just call if there are opponents behind you. You probably are going to split the pot with the bettor, so it is best to give your remaining opponents a chance to call. In addition, there is the possibility that your opponent holds KQ and would reraise costing youmoney.

Betting or Raising as a Bluff
As we discussed earlier, one of the worst mistakes you can make on the river is folding the best hand. On the other hand, getting an opponent to fold the best hand is a great achievement since you win the entire pot. The most common example of a bluff bet on the river is when you are on a draw and you bet hoping that your
opponent is on a busted draw also or will fold a weak pair. For example, you raise in late position with the 9♣ 8♣ and the big blind calls. The flop is J♦ T♦ 5♣. The big blind checks and calls to you on both the flop and turn and now checks again on the river. A bet here is correct against most opponents. Your opponent could be on a flush draw or a straight draw with AQ, KQ, K9, or Q9. You are probably getting sufficient pot odds that your opponent will fold. Be careful on who you try to bluff on the river. Bluffs are generally more successful against strong opponents who are capable of folding a weak hand such as middle or bottom pair. Most weak players tend to call with anything. Determining whether to try a bluff on the river is simply an exercise of comparing the pot odds versus the probability that your opponents will fold. Bluff raises on the river are generally not profitable, as it is difficult to get an opponent to fold who has already bet on the river, and you have reduced pot odds on your raise.

On the Internet, bluff raises on the river are even less successful than in a live game. Your pponents have a tremendous curiosity to see your cards. They also realize that opponents on the Internet try a lot of tricky plays, so they are more willing to call. Bluff raises usually are only successful if you catch a player trying a bluff also,
or you are against a very strong player who has the ability to throw away a good hand. Weak players will almost always call a raise on the end with any kind of hand, unless they were bluffing also. However, there are times when you can identify an opportunity to successfully bluff raise on the river. Here is a hand in a $20-$40 game where I was fortunate that my opponent did not try a bluff raise. I had AA in the big blind. An early player called, a middle player raised, the button called, I reraised, the early player called, the middle player capped, and everyone called. There was $330 in the pot. The flop was 5♥ 3♦ 6♥. I decided to check the flop and wait until the turn to try a raise so that I would have a better chance of driving out some opponents. The middle player bet and everyone called, The turn card was the 9♠. I checked to the middle player who bet, the button called, and I raised. Everybody called and the button was all-in at that point. There was $730 in the pot. The river was the dreaded J♥. This card was terrible for me, as now a flush was likely, or possibly the middle player hit a set. I checked. The early position player bet and the middle player decided to call. I was fairly confident that the early player had a flush since he called a raise cold on the turn, but I still called since I was getting over 20 to 1 pot odds. The early player showed A♦ 7♦ and the middle player QQ. I only bring up this example because- the middle position player saved the pot for me. If he had raised the river, I would have folded since my pot odds would have only been 10 to 1 and all the action indicated a flush or possibly a set. The middle position player could have risked $40 more by raising to drive me out of the pot, hoping that the early position player did not have the flush.

A scare card on the river can improve your chances for a successful bluff. For example, a suited card falls, or the board pairs and you represent trips, or an ace
comes on the river and you represent the ace. These kinds of plays can work against strong opponents because they have the ability to throw away hands on the
river when they think they are beat; however, these types of plays rarely work against weak opponents as they almost always call.