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Okay, thanks everyone for the input, now I'm going to address some of the things that were said.

1. While you guys are free to discuss anything you want, and I don't discourage anyone from offering advice, the main point of this post was to examine the decision to fold on the river, not to debate how to play AJ suited in the cutoff behind an MP raiser. I know that most books will suggest folding, but after seeing him limp with kings earlier, and limp with nines, I presumed he was most likely to have high cards. 1/2 players are not the "vary-your-play" type, as a rule. Also, the fact that he had played somewhat unpredictably and aggressively with weak hands after the flop (KK on AJ6A board and AJ on Q92 board), it seemed likely that he raised with two unpaired high cards which might be as low as king ten or so. Plus, I consider myself a winning player with a significant edge in that game, so my ability to outplay other players the flop makes it profitable for me to play otherwise marginal hands.

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um if he's raising stuff like KT, KJ, KQ, QJ, AT, A9 then you absolutely need to be 3betting him, coldcalling is bad, and the blinds will generally be making a huge mistake calling if they are doing so with a broad range

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2. As far as 3-betting, I have played limit hold'em for several months (I'm at 1/2 now because of poor bankroll management in the past) and I am definitely aware of this "isolation play", but the 1/2 tables in general, including the one I was at, tend to call raises and reraises in the blinds with mediocre hands too often to make an isolation play effective. If I had to look into their minds and try to think like them, I would guess that they see a large pot developing because of the multiple raises, and call with any kind of drawing hand, not considering their pot odds or the range of hands that I will make such a play with. Alternatively, they might corrrectly decipher the intetion of my reraise as an effort to knock them out, and stubbornly call simply because it is the opposite of the result I am hoping for, which they reason must therefore be a good result for them. Thirdly, I have found out that if you raise "too often", they will call you down on the flop and turn, if an ace or a lot of face cards don't come, with very weak hands because they know that once you have they betting lead you're going to keep betting no matter what hits, and they hope that you have just ace high which justifies them calling down with bottom pair or trying to pair one of their hole cards which that presume will put them ahead of you. If you limp, or call a raise preflop, and THEN bet or raise on the flop, they tend to give you more credit for hitting a hand.

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there is a small range of hands that correctly call 2 or 2.5SB out of the blinds when its gonna be 4handed max, if they are calling with a broad range your edge is bigger, and you should push it, however the range that correctly calls 1 or 1.5SB is larger so their mistake in general isn't as bad, when you coldcall

um maybe your problem is you put in too many bets postflop with Ahi in multiway pots where you don't have draws, and its likely to hit their hands


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3. I have received some harsh criticism for calling the player a "moron". Remember, those were the notes I had made about the player which were not originally meant for public consumption, not a politically correct, deeply analytical expose on his career to date in poker. I started writing nottes about him after the oddly played hand where he had KK and made, in my view, three mistakes during the hand while ending up winning it because his opponent had the one hand he could beat. Plus, as all of you notetakers know, taking notes can be a tedious and boring process, and using descriptive language makes it easier to write notes more concisely and quickly. I basically write down whatever the thought in my head was about the hand at the time.

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call him whatever you want, but don't let it cloud your judgement

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4. As far as calling on the river, after thinking about it, I probabl would have called if it was heads up between me and the bettor, for two reasons. One is that he is much more likely to try a bluff when he up against only one player, and also somewhat more likely to try and checkraise me if he does have a king. Also, he saw a bet and a checkraise when it got to him on the turn, and called it, so not only must he have some kind of hand to explain calling, but he must realize that both me and the other player have good hands too. All of these factors significantly decrease his likelyhood of bluffing. After all the action he saw, it would be very unlikely for him think he can make both of us fold. The second reason is that thtere is some value in seeing exactly what his hand was, even if I am beat, so that I can analyze how he played the hand and improve my play against him in the future. However, based on the checkraise that the SB made on the turn, I am pretty certain that he has a good hand, ideally JT or AT, but he could have TT, AQ, or even AK although he checked on the river. Of the 1/2 player pool, they all seem to call with hands like that, so I decided it was very likely that he would call and allow me to see the bettor's hand.

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