Harrington advocates in his book that you should "value bet" in a situation where you hold a reasonable hand and believe it is ahead due to the betting paterns but that your opponent will call with a worse hand.

Is this always correct though?

Perhaps you have made a 3-4BB raise from the button with AJ and your opponent on the BB calls leaving you heads up.

The flop comes down Js 7h 6h

Opponent bets/ You bet 3/4 pot / Opponent calls

Turn 3s

Opponent checks/ You bet 3/4 pot / Opponent calls

River Qs

Opponent checks...

In this situation I would usually expect I am ahead and check to see. Harrington would say you should place perhaps a 1/2 pot value bet. He doesn't say what you then do if you face a raise. What if your opponent has AA or trips and since you have bet every other street checks into you again? Or perhaps he was holding A7 of spades, called on 2nd pair and has infact hit a backdoor flush draw, or was calling on AQ and now hit - again he checks believing you will bet into him.

Given that this is referring to tournaments, even if your opponent calls 50% of the time, folds 45% of the time and raises 5% of the time, do people think it is worth gaining an extra 100 chips here and there, if 1 time out of 20 you are raised all in and forced to make a decision on your whole tournament?