Protect this hand?

[marchron]

Grunch: nh.

Preflop is cool. You're getting 9-1 immediate odds, plus all four of the limpers will probably call. That's more than enough for set value, but you don't have enough hand to 3-bet.

Flop: Take a bow; that was beautiful. You likely have the best hand, but it's vulnerable, so you let Villain do the work, SB folded (great result), and your raise powered out the rest of the field.

You don't quite seem sure about this, though; you say, "Going on stuff in SSHE, I figure I would try to protect my hand by checking to him and trying to raise to make everyone face 2 bets, but I was a little worried that the two very loose-passive players in between may have called anyway."

Here's the thing, though (and I missed this the first few times I read SSHE — it took reading threads here to understand it): no matter what the other players do, you have done your job. You have offered all four of the remaining players the worst odds possible for them to continue drawing at their hands. If they fold, that's fantastic — one less hand that could overtake you. If they stay in, paying more for their hands than they should, then that benefits you, too, considering you probably have the best hand. If they suck out, oh well. Them's the breaks. Not even David Sklansky's massive evil brain can force people who don't want to fold to do just that. We can only offer them poor odds and -EV situations, making it +EV for us.

Turn: excellent. That card probably didn't help Villain, and he didn't signal a pocket pair bigger than your eights by raising. Let's hope for a good river.

River: good card, but you did wuss out a little. I guess a check isn't terrible; if he was feeling froggy and raised with pocket sixes, then his belated Christmas miracle has just arrived. Plus, if he has overcards (an almost certainty given his actions) he'll probably bet because he has to bet to win. Then you can call and snap him off.

The mistake here was assuming you were behind: "Maybe I should've bet again in case he would fold, but I figured because he called the turn that he was likely to call." In that case, BET!! If he has pocket nines or tens, then he played them like a girly man. But take another look at everything that happened here: how likely are you to be behind? Not very. If you bet and he raises, now you've got a dilemma. But since you did check, if he bet, you must call. If you're behind, you're not behind less than the one time in twelve it would take you to consider folding this river.

All in all, though, nh. Keep up the good work.