[Nibster]

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If you push the river you'll get called mostly by hands that beat you. If you bet less than push and then call a push, same thing. If you bet less than push and then fold to a push, you are folding getting about 5:1 is a big pot where you could have the best hand, and that's very bad. If you check behind, you potentially lose value. None of these options are good.

A pot sized raise on the turn is basically pushing, and when you push the villain gets about 1.8:1 on a call for all his money. It's possible he is already ahead of you and if he's not he's probably on a gutshot maybe with a pair. Those hands aren't going to call a push all the time. Another likely hand for him is an overpair like JJ-TT or maybe QQ, but they often 3 bet preflop and when they don't they will frequently fold to a turn push. So the majority of the hands that call a turn push are straights & trips, so that's not great either.

You could raise the flop and that will end the hand a lot of the time. But you could also end up in a spot where you either win small pot or lose a big one because when he re-raises you he's usually ahead. If you fold then you're again in a spot where you're folding getting decent odds in a big pot.

But if you go all the way back to preflop and raise more there, it will make the pot much larger. If you make it $12 instead of $8 and the hand plays out in basically the same way, villain will bet about 20 on the flop & 50 on the turn, leaving 114 in the pot and you with 168 behind. Here you can easily push and give villain 2.5:1, which a lot of hands that are behind will call, including JJ and gutshot+pair combos.

So I'd raise more preflop & as played check the river behind.

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