B/F on River .... why?

[b1grich]

I see that a lot of guys tell people to bet/fold on the river. Why not just check/call on the river if your unsure. That way you can use the same amount of money to see the other guys hand.

[BigBadBabar]

the simple answer is lots of the time if you bet a guy will call you with a worse hand and raise you with a better hand, so you get more value from your winning hands and you know when you're beat. obviously it depends on the opponent and if you do it a lot, and other factors too. checkcalling lets him check behind weaker hands that he might call a bet with.

[BigBadBabar]

obviously there are times when you want to checkcall as well

[BigBadBabar]

like if the guy likes to bluff a lot or on scare cards

[Zeldark]

There's BBB failing to use that edit button again [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

His answers, however, are correct of course.

[sharpie]

Because 2+2 = bet/fold

[halpgr]

It took me a while to progress from bet/call to bet/fold, like Aussie describes. It seemed weird when I first started doing it but eventually it becomes natural and you do it as a standard action.

A good situation to learn to apply it would be against loose passive players who never bluff and will call, call, call, call, call, call, ... with a draw or small made hand but will raise the turn or river with a big hand - where a big hand is 2 pair or better.

Say you open raise at 10 player table in middle position with AK. A bad loose passive player cold calls in the CO. Button and sb fold. BB calls.

The flop is King/rag/rag. bb checks, you bet, CO calls, BB folds.

The turn is another blank. You bet, CO calls.

The river is yet another blank. You bet, CO raises. You can fold here because CO does not bluff and never raises the turn or river with less than TPTK.

It was still correct to bet this river because CO will call with lots of hands you beat but will not bet a hand you beat on the river if checked to. You're more often ahead than behind on this river so bet/fold is your most profitable move long term.

[Xylocain]

A thing to note the b/f is that it should not be used too often as it will encurage [observant] people to take shots and bluff at you (they dont have to succeed very often to make it a +EV play for them). You will be making a huge mistake everytime you are folding the best hand against a bluff raise. And it will take a lot of perfect b/f:ing to make up for that.

Also, it is to be used when you are OOP and intend to call anyway, but you are not sure that you have the best hand. By b/f you want to prevent your opponent to check behind with his weak hands that you beat and bet his strong hands.
but I guess that has been said already.
-d