Re: River betting
Nice post.
My initial thought is: imo your argument is sound IF villian is either going to go all in (either call or raise), or fold.
However, you didnt mention the liklihood of respective events. In order to get the disgusting 5-1 odds situation we have to have 1) believe we had the best hand on river to value bet 100-180 2) opponent believes he has reraise value. This isnt going to happen often. It may seem that it does because those are the hands we remember, but most of the time its an ordinary bet/fold bet/call or check/check.
Lets take an example hand I just made up. Hero has 420 and villian has him covered. 2/4 nl say.
Hero is UTG+1 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Hero raises to 16, button calls, all fold.
Flop J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (pot = 38)
Hero bets 30, villian calls.
Turn comes 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (pot = 98)
Hero bets 70, Villian calls 70.
River comes 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (pot = 240, hero has 300, villian covers)
Hero's move?
...this isnt so easy because with all the draws that missed on the flop (or became draws on the turn), we could check/call. But on this soft&cuddely river villian probably gives up here with a busted draw unless we're known for firing 2 barrels a lot lately. Depends on the villian. A lot of the time I'd bet this river, and how much would depend on villian, and the texture of my conflict with him.
But I dont think a bet of 300 on this river is going to get looked up unless your image is something special. Your conjectures therefore suggest a check here, but I dont think its optimal unless ur opponent is the right sort.
Then again, maybe my mistake is to take this in isolation, maybe its good to give up EV in this hand to gain f/e on later hands.
Interesting thoughts though I'd like to hear more.
Maybe the lesson from this is, think about river stack sizes before you make a defining turn bet.
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