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I imagine I'm sometimes guilty of this type of thing nyself, but when somebody just posts "river raise sucks" without giving any analysis or reasoning, I don't find it terribly helpful. [Except in the sense that if it's a player I respect. And I do respect James 282. A lot.]

Could you elaborate on why you think it sucks? Thanks.

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I'll jump in here. It's because you've telegraphed your holding in a way ahead/way behind situation. So if he doesn't have trips, he knows you either have it or an ace. So on the slim chance he has a weaker ace, you'll get a call, but the vast majority of the time you'll either fold him or get reraised.

The villian in this hand has bet directly into the overcard, representing significant strength. This comes right after a check on the turn that screams of a whiffed checkraise.

So what does our hero gain by raising here? Let's say he's ahead of a weaker holding (perhaps a weaker ace or a PP he just won't give up on) that will call the raise about 15% of the time. Let's say he is behind trips 40% of the time. Let's say he is behind better than trips 20% of the time. And let's say his opponent reraises with a worse hand 10% of the time and hero folds 5% of the time when this occurs. Finally, let's say his opponent folds to a raise 15% of the time. Since I don't know the bet amounts let's just make them 10 for ease of calculation.


So all in all, about 20% of the time hero can expect to make a small profit from his raise. 5% of the time the raise will cost him the whole pot (when he incorrectly folds), and 60% of the time it will cost him the raise and any call of the reraise. 15% of the time the raise means nothing to hero, as his opponent folds.

Now it is easy to see now why the river raise is a poor play. Hero is generally only going to get called by hands that beat him, and those hands will likely raise him. On those occassions hero is ahead, he will be very far ahead and villian will probably fold. There are very few holdings villian could hold given this action that hero beats *and* that will call the raise, and of course that's precisely why we make raises on the river like this--to get inferior hands to call. But when most of the call-worthy hands are reraising hands, and there are very few hands villian will simply call with and lose, the overall EV of the raise is quite negative.