Re: Wasted bet on the river?
I do not like the flop raise in front of the field.
The primary argument in favor of the raise is "clean up the ace". Guess what? I have a jack kicker. I'm not afraid of Ax. Actually I hope he pays off when I make my ace.
Once in a great while you can isolate against SB with a draw and win unimproved when neither of you makes anything. But the truth is the scenarios where you win by raising are very unlikely and this pot is not very big.
I prefer to keep my chips in my stack and my opponents in the pot.
Raising the turn will almost never cause you to win the hand. They will rarely fold and you often would win anyway. It places an 1 or 2 extra BB in a serious -EV position whenever Button would have given a free card, Button is sandbagging, or SB is checkraising.
Bluffing the river is clearly wrong. Yes, it is entirely possible they might both fold. If your hand is 5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] I completely get it. Take a shot at 11-1 if you want to. But AJ? You have the nut busted draw. No one is going to fold a pair at this point with this draw-laden board. If you bet and they both fold, it's because you were winning anyway.
The real question on this deal is whether you should call the river if Button bets behind you and SB folds. Tough one but I say yes assuming this player is typical low-level in that he might bluff a busted draw but will miss a ton of thin value bets with low pairs.
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