Betting River, Folding to a Raise

[Frond]

This is geared with LHE in mind. What is the actual theory behind this?

Say you have a hand like top pair with a weak kicker, you have bet along the way and got called by 2-3 players. Now it is the river. Your'e first to act. Sometimes I read people's advice of: "bet river, fold to a raise". I know it is a vague question and I didn't give a lot of specifics, but why take the bet/fold to a raise line instead of C/C or C/F? I know depends what what is the general reasoning behind this. If you are not sure where your'e at, why not check call for a bet instead of betting,facing a raise and having it cost you a total of 2 bets to showdown?

[oyvindgee]

Showdown has no value if your opponents never raise with a worse hand or a bluff. This is often the case in such scenarios. Their calling ranges are also usually larger than their betting ranges since they have called all the way to the river, they have to either have some made hand or a draw. If lots of draws come in c/f could be okay and obv c/c could be okay in the opposite case. IIRC this is explained much better in TOP.

[Frond]

I'm a huge fan of value betting and I am doing it more on the river. I am more inlcined to pay off more than I am to fold to a raise. It depends on idiot level of the player &the pot size a lot though.

[Micturition Man]

Here's the thing.

The bet-fold line is usually highly exploitive. You are counting on your opponent not to bluff raise you nearly as much as he should in certain spots.

If he actually bluff raises more than he should it can be highly -EV.

Fortunately for people who like the b-f approach, one of the most common theoretical flaws in most people's limit games is that they do not bluff enough in certain situations.

But you are quite correct that, strictly in theory, b-f is usually inferior to check-call.

[Frond]

I guess using both is a good thing to be able to use.