[lork]

Missing bets on the river is probably the worst leak I have identified in my game right now and it's the one I'm trying to work on. I had this hand come up tonite that shws a possible example of it.

PartyPoker low limit holdem.

I'm SB and it's my second hand at the table, so I really have no reads on the table other than the fact that there aren't any big winners. Folded to me and I look at K2o. I'd normally come in for a raise here against the BB but I have no read on the table so I just complete. BB raises and I call.
Flop comes low rags like 235 rainbow. I have bottom pair and I bet into the raiser. I figure if he has a big pair he'll raise me and I can dump it and move on. BB calls. Turn is a jack. I bet, BB calls. River is a 6 putting a 4-straight on board. Check, check. Deuces are good against BB's AQs.

Was checking the river the right play here. I wanted to see showdown for one BB at the most so I check. I missed a bet because I'm almost certain he would have called, but it's a scary board for a pair of 2's to value bet. I couldn't call a river raise here. I think my lack of table feel put me in cautious mode, but I seem to always play the flop and and turn aggresively and wimp out on the river.

Any thoughts?

[ballen]

I think you did OK.
Staying in to the River with Bottom Pair, & possible straight on the board, most likley would have checked the river too.

[johnf]

Seems to me you played it just right. If you had bet on the river and been called, chances are you were beaten. Even worse, what if he raised! What would you do then?

[chris]

Obviously johnf is right and you played this particular situation just right. With your opponent's cards he would almost certainly fold to your bet on the river, so you didn't miss out on any additional return here.

I might have played the river the same way, but just to mix it up a little bit, if your opponent had something like pocket 7's, risking one additional bet on the river might get him to fold with a straight possibility and an overcard on the board, while your check-check loses the entire pot. Perhaps an acceptable risk.

[lork]

Yeah, I thought about this specific hand while I was at work today and I think I played it as good as possible. In this spot, I would have been hard pressed to call a raise on the river when all I could beat was a stone bluff. I probably would have called a river bet after I checked, because there'd be about 5 BB's in the pot by then and I'd only have to snap off a bluff once in 5 to break even. I need better examples for critique. I'll dig into to some of my records and post them up later.

[pritz]

I'll often bet into a raiser when I think I have the best hand. When they just call a light bulb goes off and you know your in. With almost anything that hits being a scare card checking the river was the right Idea. I think anyone who has some poker knowledge would do the same.

[jorpot]

You most certainly announced you didn't have a straight by not betting.. imho.

You're lucky he/she was a weak player!!

[lork]

I wouldn't expect anyone to raise out of the big blind with a 4 in their hand either.

[norshvind]

if you made a mistake on this hand, I don't think it was on the river, but on the flop. The preflop raise in that situation could easily have been a medium or higher pocket pair, which would become a good everpair on the flop you described.
I would have checked the flop. If he checked behind you, you would be able to feel pretty confident in your low pair, and kept the pot small to discourage the BB from calling a big bet on the turn. If he bet, I would go for the check-raise to gain info. top pair, an over pair or a set would almost certaily reraise, telling you that you're beat, and a call would probably tell you he was betting with ace high, and you had him beat. Hell, he might even fold, thinking you had the straight. Regardless of what happens, this play saves you the stress of having to bet into a somewhat mysterious opponent with what could very easily be a worse hand, and gives you a much, much better idea of where you and your pair of 2s stand vs. your opponent and his hand.

[lork]

It should be noted that this is partypoker low-limit full table action, where the straightforward play gets the money and the fancy plays like check-raising bottom pair as a semi-bluff isn't really going to work out so much because the semibluff loses its potency if people don't occasionally fold to it. If this were a 6way table, then I'd more more inclined to check-raise bottom pair for the image value alone.

His preflop raise tells me that he likes his hand. I can roughly figure pocket pairs 8-A will raise heads-up out of the big blind, or A9 and up will raise also maybe any Axs or KQ-KT if the big blind is a frisky player. Since I haven't played this table very long, I figured I'd take a flop because I trust my post-flop play to *usually* keep me out of too much trouble. Mathematically, it's also more likely that he has big cards than a pair.

I'm not sure I exactly agree with your line of reasoning. First off, I would have folded to any re-raise in this hand. I would have flipped a coin to call a river bet after my river check because by then it's almost worth that last big bet to get the information on how my opponent plays plus I'm getting 6:1 to snap off a bluff. With that in mind by checking to the PF raiser on the flop, I increase my chances of inducing him to keep driving the hand through my show of weakness. He's got position on me and I can only beat a bluff at that point so I would be hard-pressed to check/call in that situation. So if I go for the check-raise and my opponent just called my check-raise, then that tells me the same thing that I get from him calling my lead bet. If he 3-bets my check-raise I spent two small bets to get re-raised when he probably would have raised my lead bet if he was willing to 3-bet a check-raise. I'm either ahead or getting trapped. So the check-raise doesn't really tell me much more than I already know or will gather from the lead-bet. By lead-betting, I also give him the chance to fold for the cheapest risk to myself and take bad odds on an overcard draw. Very few players will fold to the one small bet on the flop check-raise when he's getting 7:1 to call and two more cards to come, especially at that level on partypoker. 7:1 is a good price for an overcard draw anyway, so he shouldn't fold there if I did check-raise. Check-raises are good for cutting down people's odds so that it's a mistake to call 2 cold, or to build a pot in which you have enough equity to justify the extra money going in.

I figure an overpair is going to wait till the turn to raise me if he's tricky, or raise the flop if he's straightforward. By lead-betting the flop and turn, it will cost me 1.5 big bets to get raised on the turn with a trap play by my opponent, and a flop check-raise plus turn lead-bet would cost me 2 big bets to get raised on the turn in the same trap play. By lead-betting, I'm also not letting overcards take a free card to outdraw me if my opponent chooses to check behind me.

The river check is because the board is too scary for me to continue betting and I don't want to have to call off two big bets to see a showdown if I am beat and he's been waiting to raise the river instead of the turn, but as I said earlier I'm close on calling the river if he bets after I check. When he checked behind me I figured my deuces were good given how the hand played out, with the outside possibility of something like A3s.

That's my reasoning on this hand.

[ThomasR]

That was good play, in my opinion. You hadn't got anything solid as of yet, but you had potential and had gone all the way so far, so backing out wasn't really justifiable unless a large bet came up at the river.

Played it slow, didn't overestimate what you had in hand, good solid and consistant play.