[Mathieu]

This post started as an off topic tangent to an another thread and I decided to give it it's own thread.

Here's the deal:

You are on the river, out of position with a strong hand, and you and villain have been gunning it on the turn. Villain capped the turn, so he obviously likes his hand.

If the river is a card that should not have helped neither you or villain, and the "dialogue" that started on 4th street has reached a point where if you bet and get raised, it will mean that you should just call the raise.

Do you bet/call, or check call, and what are the factors to consider?

OK this is too vague so lets look an example:


Preflop: Hero is SB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, MP1 calls, 4 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls, MP1 calls.

Flop: (7 SB) 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, MP1 folds.

Turn: (4.50 BB) A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, Hero 3-bets, UTG+1 caps, Hero calls.

River: (12.50 BB) 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 players)

Hero..

This was my question to Aaron regarding the river bet:

[ QUOTE ]

Why do we (many of us do it) bet the river HU when our opponent has shown a lot of strength and we think that if we get raised it will be bad news.

I think if the raise will mean that we are more likely to be behind, then we should just check-call. This way we don't allow our opponent to get 2 bets in when we are behind.

My point is that it seems like we often bet hoping that our opponent will "just call" in situations where our opponent got the last raise on the turn and is obviously going to bet if we check.

So I think that for the bet/call to be better than the check/call we have to think that a raise by our opponent will imply that our winning chances are around 50%-65%. If there are any higher we should bet-reraise and any lower we should check-call.

Do you agree?


[/ QUOTE ]

Special thanks to Aaron for responding to my post. I will post his analysis as a reply to this post in order to allow grunching.