"bet fold river"

[dark_horse]

i read about this heads up concept here all the time. when OOP bet the river for value so that it doesn't get checked behind, but if you're raised you can fold with confidence. win the most, lose the least. my problem with that is, you're closing the action and you're getting the best pot odds for your call than at any other point in the hand. i find it very hard to fold to a river raise with something like top pair on an unthreatening board (i.e. 4flush, 4straight, 2pair). depends on the opponent, situation, cards, etc.. i know. and i also know that an opponent is raising with the least fear on the river. but wouldn't that make a good reason/place to bluff? even hellmuth in his book (eh) states that he's a calling station on the river in limit games.

how often are we bet/folding a day? doesn't it start to make you paranoid? don't others notice when you do this and start to take shots at you? don't you have to be unbelievably sure that you're beat in order to fold to a river raise heads up? i see those river raise bluffs called sometimes. i need to cut down on my 8balls.

[Nick C]

This is something I think about from time to time: If my opponents could somehow play individual hands against me with me having no memory of previous ones and they bluff-raised the river frequently, they'd be making a profitable play.

Fortunately, though, I do in fact have some knowledge of what's going on at the table, and it seems like my actual opponent either loves to bluff-raise the river and it's obvious, or he hardly ever does.

Players who do it only occasionally present a real problem, but I don't know how many 3/6 players really fall into that category.

One thing I wonder about sometimes, though, is how often someone will try a river bluff-raise or two, maybe just in frustration, just before leaving the table. There would be a certain randomness there, since we don't know in advance when someone plans to leave.

Also, if someone starts bluff-raising specifically against you, then that is a real problem. It's for this reason that, if I've made a couple of river bet-folds recently, I become less inclined to do it again for awhile, at the same table.

Edit: Another good concept to keep in mind is that you should be less inclined to take a line that involves folding, when you have a pretty good hand, when your opponent is unknown to you.

[ZenMusician]

[ QUOTE ]
You should be less inclined to take a line that involves folding, when you have a pretty good hand, when your opponent is unknown to you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Frame this and sticky it!

Solid advice my man!

-ZEN

[PatJ]

Read the Dude's (Drew Pruitt) article on this from the July magazine, think the title is pretty self explanatory.

You don't want to fold on an unthreatening board, in fact the opposite. You want to fold when your hand is better then a lot of what you'll be called with but at the same time is far from the nuts. You need to be confident that your opponent wouldn't raise you without having the straight or whatever else is out there.

But yeah, read the article from July.

[SierraFox]

I think I'm the opposite. I can almost never bet-fold on the river.

If I bet heads up, I'm 99% of the time calling a raise. If it's a threating board that I've been betting most of the way, I check to try and induce a bluff.

But I know this is one of the bigger leaks in my game. I think it's still more a psychological thing for me. I just HATE the thought that someone might be bluff raising me!

Bet-fold is something that I need to learn better as far as identifying spots where it's the right line to take.