One of the most complex poker strategy decisions is when you are first to act on the river

Continuing our poker strategy on the river topic from part one, we are dealing with a heads-up situation.

In all cases, you must decide whether you are ahead or not. Most are not straightforward, but careful thought can help you make the right decisions.

Let’s deal with the easy cases first and move on to advanced poker strategy afterwards.

1) You have the nuts

A pretty nice situation to be in. Being first to act means you have a dilemma to face. Ideally you are up against an aggressive opponent who may bet with all kinds of hands.

Your check sets up these guys for a bet, which you will of course raise.

But this is a risky strategy. You are going to cost yourself money if the player checks behind you. There is a universal truth in poker: players will call with more hands than they will bet with.

In the above case, when you know you cannot lose, betting is probably the best poker strategy. In some cases, your opponent will be sitting on a second-best hand that he can’t resist raising with! So the risk of checking to raise seems too great. Best poker strategy? Bet out and hope he has walked into a decent enough hand to raise you.

2) You have nothing at all

Again, knowing your opponent is important. Now you hope to be facing the kind of tight-weak player who can fold good hands, like one pair, against an aggressor on the river.

Here, the risk is whether to bet to steal the pot, or leave it be. A lot depends on your table image. If you come across as a tight, solid, aggressive winner, people will be less likely to call this bluff than if you are seen as a loose, wild player.

Bluffing here is not ALWAYS going to be correct, of course, but if you fold every time you miss your hand, you will be giving up pots on the river. And pots on the river are usually bigger. That’s an expensive time to fold! Mix up your play enough so that people can’t read you easily and you will succeed more often than you fail. 3) You are somewhere in-between

The biggest problem when you have hands that are less clear-cut is figuring out whether you are winning or losing. Sometimes it’s a very close call and the best poker strategy seems counter-intuitive!

Let’s say you have AK and the board looks like this:

Nasty situation. Your top pair, top kicker is almost certainly behind, to either a straight (the Queen of any suit) or a flush (two clubs). The best poker strategy is to check and then fold if the opponent bets.

Change the river card very slightly, though, and you will be able to make a case for betting. Again, you have AK:

Now, your opponent cannot have a flush. He could still have a straight, but he must have a combination of two straight cards, such as AQ, 97 or Q9. None of these is likely, as you will surely have been betting strongly from preflop with your AK. He would have raised the turn with AQ to prevent you drawing cheaply for the flush.

Ironically, your action here should be to check as well. The optimal poker strategy is to get your opponent to bluff with his busted drawing hand. Don’t forget that he COULD still have beaten you with KJ or something equally lucky, so a check-call seems the best move to me.

Learning the strength of your hand on the river in relation to the best hand available takes experience. Your poker strategy should vary depending on: the strength of your hand; the assumed strength of your opponent’s hand; and your knowledge of his likely style when facing you on the river.

Part three will deal with what your best poker strategy is when you are last to act on the river.

Click here for part three of this poker strategy mini-series!