Master poker strategy with PeakGTO. Try this poker solver for free
In our extensive series on bet sizing, we’ve covered flop and turn betting strategies across different boards, when playing as the aggressor both in and out of position.
Now, we finally arrive to the river, the last betting street, and the one that often features unexpected bet sizes. We’ll try to cover just a few board examples to give you an idea of what this looks like in the GTO world, but this is a super-extensive and complicated branch of the game tree that can’t possibly be covered in a single article.
For clarity, examples in this lesson are all at 100 big blinds effective, as we arrive at the river after betting the flop and the turn.
Here are a few main takeaways before we move on to the analysis of specific spots:
- IP: We are using huge bet sizes on high card rivers on dry ace-high runouts
- IP: On board pairing rivers following dry ace-high runouts, we are balancing between 75% and 100% of the pot size
- IP: We are betting low card rivers following ace-high dry runouts at a low frequency, using a smaller size
- IP: Utilize large (163% pot) sizing on ace and high-card rivers on low-card dry boards
- OOP: Use large 100% – 138% pot size on ace-high rivers following dry high-card runouts
- OOP: Bet at a high frequency using a large sizing on all low card rivers following high-card dry runouts
- OOP: Use large sizing on high-card rivers following low-card dry runouts
Dry Ace-High Boards in Position: Bet Huge on High Card Rivers
The first example we’ll look at is runouts starting with a dry ace-high flop, followed by a turn that doesn’t change the texture much, such as A♠7♣2♥4♦.
On such turns, we’re betting around 30% of the time, using mostly a large sizing of 100% or 150% of the pot. So, what happens when our opponent calls and checks us once more on the river?High-card rivers are the most interesting category to examine, as poker solvers tend to use a large sizing in these spots. As you can see below, on king rivers, we’re betting over half the time, primarily betting 268% the size of the pot, and occasionally using the “smaller” 150% pot sizing.
Solver uses a similar betting distribution for queen rivers, while jack rivers feature an equal distribution of three large sizings: 268%, 1505, and 10% of the pot.
Board Pairing Cards
On board pairing cards, the general tendency is to bet at the 50%+ frequency, balancing between 100% and 75% of the pot bet size.
A runner-runner pair, i.e., the turn card pairing on the river is a bit of a category of its own, as we are actually betting around 75% of the time, with a strong preference for 100% of the pot sizing:
With the bottom card pairing on the river, we are betting around 65%, splitting our bet size equally between the 100% and 75% pot:
On the middle and top (ace) card pairing, our betting frequency drops to around 50%, with a pretty even balance between 100% and 75% sizing. The ace pairing rivers gravitate toward larger sizing, while the middle pair rivers prefer 75%.
Low River Cards
The final group of cards we’ll look at are low cards, like 3s, 5s, and 6s. On these types of textures, these low cards usually complete some potential straight draws, so they are never complete blanks. Thus, our river strategy is a bit more conservative.
Generally speaking, we’ll be checking back around three-quarters of the time and betting only 25%. When we do decide to bet, there is a strong preference for the 75% pot sizing.
Dry High-Card Boards Out of Position: Use Large Sizing on Ace Rivers
For our out-of-position analysis of river bet sizes, we’ll focus on dry high-card boards. The reason for this is that these are the type of flops that we are c-betting at a high frequency, as opposed to ace-high boards, where our flop c-bet out of position is just around 10%.
We’ll be using an example of a K♠8♣2♦6♥ runout, where we are c-betting the flop at almost 70% and firing the turn at the frequency of around 35%. Provided our opponent calls our turn bet, what happens when we arrive at different rivers?
Ace rivers are the most interesting category in this context, as these are the ones that we are betting at a frequency of almost 80%, balancing between 138% and 100% of the pot. Ace rivers are scary for our opponent, and we can represent them pretty well, as our range contains all the strongest aces.
Board Pairing Cards
When it comes to board pairing cards on these types of runouts, there is a pretty big difference in our river betting strategies for the top card pairing and all other pairs.
On king-pairing rivers, we’ll be mostly using the large sizing of 138% of the pot, but only betting around 30% of the time:
On all other board-pairing rivers, solvers bet at a high frequency of almost 65%, using exclusively the large sizing of 138% of the pot:
High Card Rivers
When it comes to high-card rivers following these types of runout, the solver never uses super-large sizes. Instead, it balances between 60% and 25%, where lower high cards (jacks, in this instance) use the 60% sizing almost exclusively, while we are betting 25% of the pot on queen rivers.
Low Card Rivers
On all low card rivers, we are betting at a fairly high frequency of around 65% – 75% and there is a clear preference for big sizing. Depending on the exact card, the solver balances between 138% and 100% of the pot, but these are pretty much the only two sizes that we use in these spots.
The reason for this is that we have a lot of strong combos remaining in our range after betting the flop and the turn, since our turn betting range contains a lot of pair + draw combos that largely benefit from these low card rivers.
Dry Low-Card Boards in Position: Bet Big on Ace & High Card Rivers
Low card dry boards (i.e., boards without a possible flush) feature an interesting range of river betting options. To demonstrate this, we’ll be using an example of the 8♠5♥2♣6♦ runout.
Ace on the River & High Cards
Arriving to the river after betting on the flop and the turn, we’ll be firing on ace rivers just over 30% of the time. In terms of sizing, we are using a very large, 163% of the pot bet, almost exclusively:
On high card rivers, i.e. kings, queens, and jacks, we should be betting at a much higher frequency, between 70% and 80%. The default sizing in these spots is 75% of the pot, although jack-high rivers feature a decent percentage of large (163%) bets as well.
Board Pairing Cards
Generally speaking, we’ll be betting a lot on different types of river-pairing cards on these types of low and fairly dry runouts. However, exact frequencies and bet sizing differ quite a bit for different pair categories:
- Top card pairing on the river – betting the river just under 35%, using primarily 163% of the pot sizing
- Middle card pairing – betting just over 55%, using 75% of the pot sizing about two thirds of the time and 168% for the rest
- Bottom flop card pairing on the river – betting at 60% frequency and always using the 163% sizing
- Turn card pairing on the river – betting around 60%, using predominantly 163% sizing, and the 75% sizing about 25% of the time
The overall conclusion is that we should be using a lot of big bets on board-pairing rivers, and we are, on average, betting out on these rivers well over half the time.
Low River Cards
Low cards finishing these types of runouts aren’t the best for our overall range. For that reason, our betting frequency on low-card rivers like 3s, 4s, and similar isn’t very high at all. Once the big blind checks, we are only betting about 15% to 25% of the time.
When we do bet, we’ll be using a large sizing (either 163% or 75% of the pot), since those bets represent very strong holdings.
Dry Low-Card Boards Out of Position: Bet Big & Often on High Card Rivers
If we look at the same board example of 8♠5♥2♣6♦ in the cutoff vs. button dynamic, we are c-betting the flop around 20% of the time. When the button calls, we are continuing betting the 6♦ turn around 33%, splitting our turn sizing between very large (100% and 150%) and small (25%) bets.
Since using bigger turn bets leads to larger pots, we’ll focus on that particular instance to see how to best pick our river sizing.
Ace Rivers
On ace rivers, the solver suggests betting right around 30%, while the default bet sizing in these spots is of the small variety: just 25% of the pot.
Aces will generally be better cards for the in-position opponent’s range, which dictates both our betting frequency and preferred sizing.
High Card Rivers
High card rivers are pretty much the complete opposite of the above example. On these types of boards, high cards, i.e. kings, queens, and jacks are high frequency betting spots where we want to utilize primarily larger sizing.
- King rivers – betting just under 90%, using the 60% pot sizing almost exclusively
- Queen rivers – betting just under 80%, using 60% about two-thirds of the time and 138% the rest of the time
- Jack rivers – betting at 95% frequency and utilizing 60% of the pot sizing almost exclusively
Even if you don’t memorize all these percentages, the most important takeaway is that high-card rivers represent a great river betting opportunity, and you should default to a larger sizing between 60% and 130% of the pot.
Board Pairing Rivers
All board-pairing rivers represent great river betting spots, where we are betting around 75% of the time. The default sizing in these situations is 138% of the pot. The only exception from this rule is when the top pair from the flop pairs, in which case we are still betting at the same frequency, but equally splitting our bet sizes between 138% and 60%:
Low Cards
Finally, on low cards finishing these types of runouts, we are not betting a lot out of position at all, since these cards tend to complete a number of draws and have a good chance of improving the opponent’s hand.
In the events where we do bet (10% to 20%), we are defaulting to the smaller size of 25% of the pot for those very same reasons.
