Fold this river

[theweatherman]

Damn these flops are hard to get away from. This is my 4th hand at the table so i have no reads on anyone. Is this an obvious river fold?


Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 max, 6 handed) converter

Button ($58.43)
Hero ($48.5)
BB ($67.68)
UTG ($0)
MP ($58.03)
CO ($29.6)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Hero posts a blind of $0.25.
MP calls $0.50, CO calls $0.50, Button calls $0.50, Hero (poster) completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($2.50) J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(6 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $2</font>, BB folds, MP folds, CO folds, Button calls $2.

Turn: ($6.50) 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $4</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to $8</font>, Hero calls $4.

River: ($22.50) 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets $15</font>, Hero calls $15.

Final Pot: $52.50

[stealyourface]

you need to raise preflop, and i like an overbet of the pot on the flop.

[EMcWilliams]

Raise preflop, and turn the music off....Raising will elminate many of the marginal drawing hands these people have limped with, and will increase your return when you hit. You have a high pot equity edge, and exploiting that is the way to make money in pre-flop play

[beset7]

(1) Raising preflop would have made this hand a lot easier to play.

(2) Pot sized bet on the flop = good

(3) Turn: (i) Bet the damn pot. No reason to bet less here (ii) I reraise the 3/4 to full pot to the minraise if he calls or reraises I'm basically done with the hand unless I catch on the river.

B7

[mythrilfox]

Raising preflop is not a clear-cut play. Both situations have their advantages. I might/might not raise preflop depending on the table. Another played mentioned you want to eliminate people with their crappy drawing hands. No. You have a drawing hand too, you want to keep them in. They could hit a shitty two-pair when you hit a better two-pair. Or flush over flush. If you hit a perfect flop there are a myriad of ways to stack people off when you may have isolated them out preflop.

The other reason I don't necessarily like raising preflop is that you will miss 2/3 of the time and be out of position with nothing more than ace high. And to truly limit the field you will have to raise quite a bit preflop. And then the pot will be completely out of control on the flop and you could be up against 3 limpers with a pair and no information whatsoever. This is ugly. The more I think about it, the more I hate raising preflop. You relegate yourself to playing passively on the flop, sure, but you're out of position. That's the price you pay.

I would probably have check/called this flop and either check/called check/raised or led the turn depending on the player.

In specific response to beset, the reason you don't want to bet full pot here is you simply don't want to get raised. You still have outs and have to call virtually any raise. If villain wasn't dumb and made a serious raise, hero may have been putting as many as 6 unnecessary dollars into this pot. It's the same situation in limit as when you should check behind on the turn if you have outs and bet if you have very few outs. In this particular hand, you can bet full pot without the flush draw. I think hero's bet was perfect.

I would also fold the river. Min-raise = very strong at low limits.