This Greedy Value Bet Strategy Will Help You Win More Tournaments

Want to build big stacks, set yourself up for deep runs, and give yourself the best shot at winning tournaments? Don’t play nice.

There is nothing special about pocket aces stacking kings preflop. KK is a strong hand and tough to fold.

But what about power-jamming with the non-nuts and getting called by worse?

If you’re the one shipping chips after calling and losing, it doesn’t feel like a cooler — it feels like you were taken to school.

In today’s game, knowing when and how to extract the absolute maximum with your hands has a massive impact on your ability to cash more often, reach final tables with a chip lead, podium finish, and outright win.

In this article, I’ll show you how to recognize when it’s time to go for the jugular.

 

Thin Value and Greed

Before the solver era, thin value referred to the expected value (EV) gained from small value bets with marginal holdings — in other words, being a little greedy. While that remains true, a lot has changed.

Instead of treating small bets with weaker made hands as clever exploits, they are now fundamental components of robust equilibrium strategies.

Put simply: we used to think it was clever. Now we know it’s correct.

Solvers aren’t just looking to squeeze value from one or two weak combos here or there; they’re optimizing for finding the maximum EV strategy across an entire range. That means failing to bet small with a marginal hand — when split sizes are preferred — can actually result in EV loss.

If you aren’t greedy, you are playing badly.

The GTO poker landscape has redefined what we call “thin”. What makes a play thin depends on the situation. Greed comes in all shapes and sizes.

Today, there are a couple of ways to be greedy — or thin.

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Widened Hand Selection & Size

It isn’t rocket science — a value bet is only a value bet as long as the calling range consists of worse hands. Value bets work linearly, stronger hands derive EV from lower-ranking ones. A beats B to Z, B beats C to Z, C beats D to Z, and so on.

But what about situations where we can use unintuitive hand classes to maximize value against lower ranking hands?

A key concept here is something I like to call greenlighting.

In GTO, ranges are balanced, meaning even passive lines retain some strong combos. But in real life, passive actions can severely cap our opponents’ range — greenlighting our greed.

Consider this hand:

Playing 25 big blinds effective, you open-raise Jx 9x offsuit from the cutoff, and the big blind calls.

Flop: Ts Th 8s (Pot: 5.5bb)

You bet 1.38bb (25% pot) and face a call.

Here’s how the big blind responds:

Against a c-bet from the cutoff on a Ts Th 8s flop, the big blind plays a high-frequency 71% check-raise strategy. This strategy is built primarily around flopped trips and pairs (8x in this instance), balanced with front and backdoor draws. Since some hands perform better as calls, the big blind also plays some of their strong hands and offsets passively.

Notice how the highest-frequency calling hands are the weak 8x, broadways, and A high, while the predominant action for nutted combos, strongest 8x, straight and flush draws, and respective offsets is to check-raise.

In theory, the big blind should retain some strong draws and nuts in their passive line. However, whether this holds true in-game has major implications on future streets. Humans tend to simplify strategies, often check-raising these board textures at a higher frequency than GTO suggests, sometimes at pure weights. If we anticipate this, we should start seeing green when facing the call.

Turn: Ts Th 8s 9d (Pot: 8.26bb)

Your opponent checks and you’ve improved to a made hand. In theory, J9 has a slight preference for checking back, but when betting, it prefers a split-size approach. Since the EVs of these well-balanced actions are close, the strategy naturally mixes.

With J9o on Ts Th 8s9d, the cutoff’s strategy — after facing a flop check-call and another check, leans toward checking back more often than betting. However, when betting, it prefers split sizes. The presence of a large bet signals the absolute hand strength of J9o relative to the big blind’s range.

Before deciding your action, it’s crucial to recap your thought process:

• You anticipated that the big blind would check-raise their strongest hands more frequently — not purely as aggression, but for simplification.
• Since they didn’t check-raise the flop, their range contains fewer strong 9x (eg. Ks9x), fewer J7/QJ and fewer flush draws.

The restraint on betting J9o with a heart or spade comes from its blocking effects on the opponent’s potential draws. Normally, when betting for value, some of the EV comes from allowing draws to call. However, given our read — that many of those draws would have check-raised the flop — blocking them isn’t a concern. This means you can afford to be a bit more greedy, betting these combos more frequently.

You bet 2.06bb (25% pot) and your opponent calls again, bringing the pot size to 12.38bb.

At this point, you’d expect a strong hand to have check-raised on the flop, or if not then, at least on the turn. 

Now, take note of the limited number of strong hands in the big blind’s calling range:

The solver has roughly 15 combos of strong hands in this node, but some of them check-raise the turn. When the solver chooses to call, it only retains ~7.5 strong combos.

Compare this to the amount of 8x in their range:

By the turn, the solver retains around 22 combos of 8x after calling.

You might worry about better 9x hands in their range, but you anticipated the ones with front and backdoor flush draws would check-raise flop more often than GTO suggests. If this assumption holds, it weakens the big blind’s 9x holdings that beat us while keeping in the ones we beat.

River: Ts Th 8s 9d 5d (Pot: 12.38bb)

Your opponent checks again.

Here is the cutoff’s river strategy:

The cutoff’s river strategy after being called twice versus small barrels and facing a 3rd check. Notice the naked 9x combos are going to showdown.

At equilibrium, J9o prefers to check back at full weight, as the solver opts for a polarized betting strategy. It wants you to bet big with the strongest hands in your range — trips, straights, full houses and overpairs — alongside their corresponding bluffs.

Everything else? It checks down.

The cutoff’s J9o combos check back at pure weights following this action and runout. Betting these combos would mean a small EV loss.

In GTO, your opponent should retain some Tx, some QJ, some 76, and some better 9x, which would typically discourage you from betting. However, you anticipated the strongest parts of their range would have either check-raised the flop or the turn. Additionally, with 76, you might even expect some river leads.

You conclude that your opponent has a much higher density of naked 8x than equilibrium suggests. Aside from a limited number of 9x and a couple of full houses — many of which we also block — we wager to have the best hand.

• A solid player, capped on the river, recognizes that by failing to re-aggress on earlier streets, they’ve emptied themselves of their strongest holdings.
• They also understand that, as a matter of sound theory, they cannot fold 100% of their range vs a polarized bet and need to find calls somewhere. If they’ve made the mistake of getting to the river with a lot of 8x and not much else, then 8x calls.

You put it all together.

You are greenlit for greed.

You go all in and are called by a pair of 8s.

They shake their head and mumble to themselves, “So thin.”

Thin value isn’t just about betting small with a small hand.

By removing combos that beat us and increasing the frequency we are called by worse, we create EV gains where equilibrium expects losses.

Greed isn’t just about size — it’s about which combos we include in that size.

Key Takeaways

• Betting small with small hands isn’t “thin value” — it’s just fundamentally sound.
• Greed isn’t just about bet size; it’s also about expanding the hand classes you value bet.
• Identify spots where villain caps their range—these are your greenlights to bet larger and more frequently than a solver would.

Good luck and see you at the tables.

To learn more about playing poker tournaments at a high level, read:  The 5 Types Of Tournament Poker Players (According to Darren Elias)

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