river donk?

[poker1O1]

unknown villian
Party Poker (7 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
I raise, UTG+1 calls, BB calls

Flop: 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
BB checks, I bet, villian calls, BB folds.

Turn: 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, villian bets, hero calls

River: K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
I bet, villian folds.

Final Pot:
should I have bet this turn to better know where I'm at?

[ QUOTE ]
should I have bet this turn to better know where I'm at?

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What's this going to tell you?

[Buckmulligan]

check/fold the river.

[krimson]

[ QUOTE ]
should I have bet this turn to better know where I'm at?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, you should bet this turn to try and take down the pot immediately, if anything. Not sure what information you gain.

[Buckmulligan]

[ QUOTE ]
No, you should bet this turn to try and take down the pot immediately, if anything. Not sure what information you gain.


[/ QUOTE ]

With this board, I think we are rarely ahead on the turn; furthermore, I think that a bet on this board rarely gets villain to fold a weaker hand. Checks are good on the turn.

[poker1O1]

No one thinks that the river bet will work 1 out of 7 times?

[krimson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No, you should bet this turn to try and take down the pot immediately, if anything. Not sure what information you gain.


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With this board, I think we are rarely ahead on the turn; furthermore, I think that a bet on this board rarely gets villain to fold a weaker hand. Checks are good on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]
When I posted that, I actually thought I was in the short handed forum. I decided to leave it there after realizing to see what people thought. I think we may still have some fold equity on the turn for the continuation bet. Really hard to know though. Unknown player, cold-calls from an EP, smooth calls flop, putting him on a range here is next to impossible.

You just picked up a few more outs on the turn. Add in your fold equity and I think you can argue a bet.

[W. Deranged]

One of the best things I ever learned from Nate Tha Great:

In general, a very sound way to play a big A in a heads-up pot on a generally non-threatening board is to bet the flop, and then to check-call the turn and check-fold the river.

The idea is this: On the turn, you are very often still ahead. But betting allows an observant opponent to bluff you off the best hand, and sometimes you have outs anyway and so you want to minimize your investment, and in a smallish pot against only one opponent giving free cards isn't much of a concern. So you check, and when you do so your opponent will often bet anything trying to take the pot down, and so often you induce a mistake.

But the river is a different story: assuming you don't improve on the river, when you check again, your opponent is going to showdown a lot of good hands and only rarely bet an inferior hand. Against most non-maniacal opponents, you can usually be pretty confident your big A is not good against their river value bet, and can fold. But the number of times they check behind and let you win a showdown, plus the likelihood of improving, means you really need to at least see a river.

I sometimes like to donk the river when the K comes and I've represented AK, KQ hands, but not against unknowns. There are a few factors that I like to know first.

1. Is villian a thinking player that has put me on a hand range?
2. Is villian capable of laying down on the river?
3. What is my table image to the villian?
4. What is villian's hand range?

With an unknown, it's just too hard to know these things. I just check/fold until I know a bit more about the player before using a donk bluff on the river.