This hand looks straightforward but the number one mistake players make at lower limits is not getting full value for their hands. They slow-play too much and when they bet, they don’t bet enough. Throughout this hand I bet the pot or close to it with my K-K very likely to be good at every point.

However, mastering play on the river in no-limit Hold’em is a lifetime project! It’s certainly true that when acting last and the action is checked to you, you can turn over your hand for free so you shouldn’t bet when you’ll only get action if you’re beat. But it’s also important to extract big bets on occasions when you’re likely to be best and may very well get paid.

Here my opponent has called on every street but there are no obvious draws on the board. So I know he has something but isn’t sure about my hand or his own.

It looks like what it is – a worse pocket pair or maybe even A-K. On this occasion I think the river bet ($20) was about right, although I may have extracted slightly more.

My opponent has a hand that he may think is best but he doesn’t define it at any point. In his position I would usually check-raise the flop. In other words he should say to himself, ‘My Nines are extremely vulnerable to over-cards and I’m happy to win the pot there and then. If I’m up against a monster I want to find out.’