against river check raise
 

assume 5/10 full game with typical, average opponent.


hero open raises from MP with A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
folded to BB who calls.

flop:
Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

BB checks, hero bets

turn: 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
BB pauses for a long time and checks. hero bets. BB calls.

river: 7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
BB checks.

hero:

Re: against river check raise
 

Is this live or online. I put basically zero value one way or the other into online pauses. FWIW, I voted for bet/call, with bet/fold being my second choice. There is no way I am checking behind here.

Re: against river check raise
 

Bet/call this all day. Maybe, if I was positive my opponent would never raise without 2 pair or better, I'd bet/fold.

Are you thinking of altering your play based on the "pause" read?

Re: against river check raise
 

this is online. take pause for what it's worth. by long pause i mean about 10 sec

Re: against river check raise
 

Straightforward bet/call. I don't think much explanation is needed as to why checking behind here really sucks.

The only question is whether you can fold to a check-raise here. There are three main reasons I went with "Hell No!":

1. Villain may be taking a shot in a heads-up pot. It is much more likely to be a play in this scenario than if it had started, say, 4 handed and only was heads-up at the river.

2. Villain might be getting tricky with a legit hand you're beating. Taking this line with a hand like KQ would be noteworthy but not necessarily impossible or even bad...

3. Folding here totally sucks for metagame reasons. In a heads-up pot, sometimes you needed to grin and bear it and pay off a little more than you might in multiway pots. Otherwise, not only will this opponent but every opponent at the table (who is watching) will begin to think that they can take shots at you.

Re: against river check raise
 

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1. Villain may be taking a shot in a heads-up pot. It is much more likely to be a play in this scenario than if it had started, say, 4 handed and only was heads-up at the river

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this is a good reason to call if you believe your opponent is reasonably likely to be capable of this

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2. Villain might be getting tricky with a legit hand you're beating. Taking this line with a hand like KQ would be noteworthy but not necessarily impossible or even bad...

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this line with KQ would be odd and would require some combination of A: genius and/or B: inexperience/ignorance. i am fully confident that an opponent capable of this would not strike observers as "average." i discard this as reason to call a check raise.


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3. Folding here totally sucks for metagame reasons. In a heads-up pot, sometimes you needed to grin and bear it and pay off a little more than you might in multiway pots. Otherwise, not only will this opponent but every opponent at the table (who is watching) will begin to think that they can take shots at you.

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i hear this all the time and i think it's probably the most overrated reason to do anything in a limit ring game. what is so bad about people taking shots at you? hopefully you are aware enough of your image where people taking shots at you is +EV. a ring game is not a tournament.

Re: against river check raise
 

The pause can equally mean that they like or dislike their hand, or it can mean nothing at all. Yesterday a tag with QQ paused when the flop came AKx. Sometimes you're opponents pauses because he's scratching his balls.

Re: against river check raise
 

Don't discount metagame considerations if you are playing live. You're probably right that it's not all that important online at lowish levels, but I guarentee you that at 5/10 and even 3/6 there are players observing this kind of thing and looking to exploit it. It is probably better not to have players taking shots at you regularly, since it will be somewhat hard to identify who is doing this and it will give you many harder decisions (read: more opportunities for mistakes) while certainly increasing your variance.

You're probably right that an average opponent wouldn't take that line with KQ. Realize, though, that reasons #2 and #3 were sort of secondary to the major reason I gave, which is number 1. People like to get frisky in heads-up pots and do silly [censored].

Re: against river check raise
 

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Sometimes you're opponents pauses because he's scratching his balls.

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or it can mean nothing at all

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yes

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The pause can equally mean that they like or dislike their hand

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no. the pause is slightly more likely to mean that opponent wants free card, is worried you just hit etc than it is to mean he is plotting to trap you or something

Re: against river check raise
 

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i hear this all the time and i think it's probably the most overrated reason to do anything in a limit ring game. what is so bad about people taking shots at you? hopefully you are aware enough of your image where people taking shots at you is +EV. a ring game is not a tournament.

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This isn't necessarily true as having a good strong table image makes blind play (stealing/defending) much easier and more profitable IMO. If you are playing ABC tag-type poker then people taking shots at you could show some profit, but if you are playing like this you are sacrificing a ton of EV in other areas of your game that you probably need to look into.