checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

Do you ever find yourself checking the river (in position), when you know you're best and are certain that your oppponent will fold if you bet, simply so you get to see his cards?

These circumstances may not arise often, but it does happen sometimes.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

Not really. You can always get informaton later and you can never be certain what you're going to get paid off by. I prefer not leaving a bet on the table.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

But I'm positing a situation where you are virtually certain that you will not get paid off if you bet again. The rejoinder really is that a person is never that certain, I suppose. But aren't you ever at least tempted to forego the chance of making one more bet just for info, at least when that chance appears really tiny?

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

I prefer to save those situations for when I'm NOT sure at all that my hand is best...the better my hand gets, the more "hmm my read could have been wrong and he actually has worse hand XX" comes into play.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

Well if I am virtually certain that he's folding (and I don't know how often that happens), my bet has very little positive expectation anyway. The reason to check is that he might bluff. But how much do you think you gain in future EV to see what he's holding? Anything?

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

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But how much do you think you gain in future EV to see what he's holding? Anything?

[/ QUOTE ]

Eh, I dunno. I'm not really claiming this makes sense, as much as I was wondering whether anyone else ever gave into the same temptation.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

last night i was playing around with a friend in a small limit 6 max game. folded the sb who's lag postflop who open completes, i raise with 86o in the bb, he calls. flop T92, he check calls. turn A, he check calls. river pairs the 9, he checks, i figure he has to have some sort of busted draw, i bet. he calls, i show my 8 high, he mucks.

the moral of the story is, you really never can be certain that they're folding. it's definitely not worth possibly missing a bet just to see what they might have folded with.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

Checking behind when you are pretty sure you're good and he can't call has the added benefit of sometimes getting your opponent to fold a better hand on the river when you do bet, if they previously noticed you being a big puss-box.

I think it's better to just bet and not let them see anything.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

I think this is pretty bad.

Apart from the fact that I've often been amazed by people looking me up with 6-high and worse, you don't really get useful information from villain's holdings.

Re: checking the river solely to make sure you get to see his cards
 

Sometimes when I am faced with a (very) marginal river betting situation, I've chosen to not bet for this reason.

If your hand is obviously the winner however, it would be giving up too much to not bet. I can't imagine ever being 100% certain that my opponent will fold.