AK unimproved

[pegboy]

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what the best line here depends on is how often he ll bluff if we ck, how often he calls with a worse hand, or how often he checks behind a better hand.

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I'll give you the better definition of our dilemma J. Mine was unclear and less accurate than yours.

But I think he'll bluff alot if we check. And i think he'll call/raise alot with a better hand. And I think he'll check behind with a better hand often enough. So I think we should check.

[jstill]

I was at first just saying ur comment about the value bet itself (needing to be ahead 50% of the time or more when called) was theorectically incorrect. If you went by this school of thought when oop everytime u would ck far more often than u truly should and it would be a serious leak in ur river play. The concept of a defensive bet here is very important and should be applied regularly (if ur not u have found a leak), its a matter of perception tho on when to apply it exactly based on the frequencies of ur opponents actions.

The central concept to it tho is that it is often better to bet when a dog to ur opponents range when they ll often ck behind worse hands (some small range of which will call a bet) but usually bet better hands most of the time the way the hands played out, then that could sway the decision even tho its not a straight value bet from check to betting being better.

here i think he calls worse A his 100% as played and will always call better hands, rarely rarely raising (pps that take this line dont usually raise, maybe big pairs but i think u can savely fold). The important things of note are that his range is atleast a bit more weighted to A his than PPs as played, pps often (if a solid player) wont want to give the freecard with mid pairs with this line. The other thing of note is that either way his better hands will extract value from u too often on the river when u ck to make ck call a more ev line than bet here in my opinion. If you check he ll bet those better hands (PPs) the majority of the time (3/4ths atleast) so i think we are better off gettin value here when ahead since either way ck call and bet only cost us 1bb vs the majority of his range(i think a bluff raise here would be small enough to not consider).

The question is how much value we lose to him bluffing now by not checking. I think most know this is a call from A hi almost 100% of the time for hero after how the hands played out. However, i cant despute they will bluff, however I dont think we get more value from that than we get from betting and being called by worse A his. Again this latter portion is partly my perception of how players play based on my experience and is up for reevaluation or alteration. The first conceptual portion however is not, and its a very important one to have a grasp on in short handed or all limit play as it comes up endlessly.

[TheWunderkind]

pegboy, you dont need be more often ahead then not to make a valuebet a correct, its even correct if we are ahead 1/100 if we would always call a bet and he would never bluff(wich is the case here). I dont see a hand that would bluff this River what this guy caps pre...i doubt he would cap AJs pre but you never know...maybe in this Hand a bet makes sot much sense if he not caps AJ or AT here you should bet..if you think he would cap a medium pp pre and play it this way and check behind the River then it makes sense to check, all in all in this specific case betting and c/cing are very close given the whole Hand played out and i dont think c/c this River is bad but your general thinking in valuebets is a little off.