Definition
Plain language
In poker, betting a strong hand to get called by weaker hands and win more chips.
As stated in the literature
A bet made expecting calls from worse holdings, contrasted with a bluff; PokerSkill's aggression budget allocates more capacity to hands that can value-bet across multiple streets.
Also called: value-bet, value betting
Why it matters: It is how a player turns a strong hand into maximum profit, and recognizing when a hand can do this across multiple rounds shapes how aggressively to play it.
For example, holding three of a kind, you bet an amount you expect a weaker pair to call, squeezing extra chips out of a hand you're likely to win.
Heard on the show
“The hand it would never have value-bet is exactly the hand it now turns into a bluff.”Episode 100 — How a Prompt Wrapper Lets a Frontier Model Play Poker Like an Expert