Party $50 NLHE: value bet or check?

[Guy McSucker]

$50 game on party, blinds 50c-$1, most stacks around the $50 mark.

I have QJspades on the button. A few limpers, I call, blinds complete/check.

Flop is KT4 with two diamonds. Everybody checks and so do I.

Turn is a 7 making two flush draws on board, neither of them mine. Two checks, a $2 bet, two calls, I call, checkers fold.

River is 9 of diamonds, filling my straight but completing the flopped flush draw too.

Again everybody checks. Do you check here and show it down, or make a value bet since everyone checked?

Guy.

[crockpot]

since the turn bettor was the first one to act here, it is very likely your hand is good (the turn bettor is the only one who could have the flush on this action if the opponents are playing normally), so i vote for the value bet, unless my opponents are very tricky, in which case i may check to avoid being bluff-check raised.

another factor is that the flopped flush draw completed. since most players will bet flush draws on the flop (and no one did here), i would have felt a lot worse had the backdoor draw hit.

as for the size of the bet, i think $5 may elicit an inspired bluff-catch, and it will leave you able to fold comfortably if someone makes a huge check raise.

i think if you can't feel confident betting here, 6:1 odds or not, you ought to have folded on the turn with only four clean outs.

[nicky g]

definitely bet. about half the pot sounds good, or more if you think they're calling stations. a check-raise would be bad, and you'd probably have to fold.

[Zag]

I agree with the crock -- if you weren't going to bet here, you had no business calling the turn. Four of your 8 outs were tainted in exactly this way. You certainly did not have pots odds for your call if you count only the 4 clean outs, so you must have been counting on implied odds. Where were they, if you are afraid to bet?

On the other hand, you have to consider your opponents. Are they likely to call with two-pair, here? (On Party, probably.) Once again, if you don't think so, not only should you not bet, but you probably shouldn't have called the turn.

I guess you can make a case for playing only the pots odds for your 4 unclean outs, plus implied odds only for the 4 clean outs. Then you justify the call on the turn and a check-behind here on the river. This smacks of a hindsight calculation, but I do believe it is justified. I do know that with the bettor and two other callers, I am afraid of a small flush, especially on Party, where people often call with hands they are afraid to bet.

You didn't ask, but I think you made a big mistake checking the flop. This is the perfect situation where you can win if either the straight or the flush makes it, if only you bet the flop. All these factors came together:
1. You had the button
2. Flop brought you a straight draw
3. Flop was 2-suited
4. Several pre-flop limpers
5. who all checked to you

This is a must-bet, IMHO. If the turn is a blank, then, when you check-behind, they will put you on the flush draw. If the river makes the flush OR the straight, you can bet it. If you are lucky, the river will make the straight while it makes two-pair for somebody else, and he will check-raise you. If it makes the flush and you bet, Mr. Two-Pair will possibly lay it down.

The one down side is if the caller has the nut flush draw, and he will check-raise you if the river brings the flush. However, you can feel good about laying it down, because no one would try a check-raise bluff in this case, since you obviously have it.

On the other hand, your failure to bet the flop has put you in this situation: where all the opponents can be pretty confidant that you do not have the flush, because, with the button, you would have bet it on the flop. (Wouldn't you?) They could reasonably come to the inspired check-raise bluff here, and push you off the winning hand.