push on the river?
 

I'm playing in a .5/1 home game 7 handed with guys that i have played with for years. I have about $25. I have a strong read on villan who may have me covered by a dollar or two. His preflop call normally means something like suited connectors or little pp. He overplays these but will never reraise with them. He also never leads out the nuts and will push back with tpgk.
i am in mp with k9h villan is sb
ep1 calls $1
ep2 folds
i raise to $3 (not necessarily a great bet but i had seen the next two players ready to fold)
they fold and villan calls
bb and ep1 fold
post $8
flop comes Ah9cAd
villan bets two dollars
I raise to five dollars
villan calls
pot $18
turn Jh
villan checks, i worry he caught a jack but doubt it
i bet $10
villan thinks for awhile and calls. At this point i am confused as to what he could possibly hold and i think i give off a tell to this nature.
pot $38
river 6c
Villan checks, i check because I think he will call anything based on my reaction.
results in white:
<font color="white">hero has K99AA for two pair
villan has 1010AAj for higher two pair wins $38 </font>
Thinking about it, even though i only had about $10 left pushing probably could have bought me the pot since he seemed to be playing scared but overplaying a pp. Any opinions?

Re: push on the river?
 

Fold preflop. Fold on the flop. Check on the turn. Fold/check on the river.

Re: push on the river?
 

Note that your stacks are only 25 BBs. This means you are in a very short-stacked game, so play no drawing hands, and no crap, because the implied odds just aren't there. (In a big stack game, where you hold, say, 200 BBs, you can play a lot of crap when you have position, because you stand to win so very much when you do make a big hand with it.)

Note that, according to your read, your opponent is not following these rules and is playing a lot of drawing hands for raises. Just wait till you have a strong hand (KQ, AT at least) and pummel him. Preflop raise should be to $4, not $3, to punish him for playing drawing hands. Just be patient and you will take his money. The few times that he does hit and traps you, he won't win enough to cover all the times he called your preflop raise and then had to abandon it.

K9 is crap, suited or not, in position or not. Pitch it. The hand "hopes" to make a weak pair and second-best kicker, or top pair and a lousy kicker. Neither of these are things you would be proud to put money behind, so just save yourself the anguish and dump it preflop.

Once you've reached the turn (perhaps a misclick [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]) then I don't have any problem with the raise, though it was too small. (And this should be your unusual play -- essentially a raise-bluff or a raise as counter-bluff. Most of the time, just fold here.) Villain probably doesn't have an ace and will probably fold. But then, if he doesn't fold, you are done with the hand. Once he called, what could you possibly put him on that would bet out and then call? There are no draws, so either he is trapping you with a good ace or a boat, he is hanging on with a bad ace, or he can beat a bluff and hopes you are doing so.

Now that you've made the nutty turn bet, your check behind is fine on the river. After all, you beat any missed draw, and he probably would have raised preflop with most of the overpairs left (which are only KK, QQ, TT). So TT is the only hand you actually fear and that you could actually produce a position difference by betting on the river. (That is, he might fold the TT, which would buy you the pot.) All other hands are in one of these three categories: "impossible" (KK, QQ, which would have raised preflop), "ahead and will call," or "behind and will fold." Therefore, betting helps only on the one hand (unfortunately, the one that he turned out to have).