Should I take a cheap river card or keep betting my draw?

[megatron]

I don't know anything about the opponent. It's the min lead on the turn that has me thinking. In my experience a min lead on a turn is a bad player playing a big hand and is now desperate for me to raise him or that the turn has just brought him some kind of draw. So, if I'm half expecting to get check-raised here should I take the cheap card? Or should I just act like the min lead didn't happen and make my standard bet here?

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

UTG: $76.80
Hero (BTN): $50
SB: $50
BB: $98

Pre-Flop: Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] dealt to Hero (BTN)
BB calls $0.50, UTG folds, <font color="red">Hero raises to $2.50</font>, SB folds, BB calls $2

Flop: ($5.50) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 Players)
BB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets $4</font>, BB calls $4

Turn: ($13.50) 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 Players)
<font color="red">BB bets $0.50</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises to $8</font>, BB calls $7.50

River: ($29.50) 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Results: $29.50 Pot ($1.45 Rake)
Hero showed Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (Ace King high) and LOST (-$14.50 NET)
BB showed 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (a pair of Fives) and WON $28.05 (+$13.55 NET)

Also, if checked to on this turn, how often are people taking a free card versus betting? I always just bet here as standard but is this correct?

[Khaos4k]

Your read about low bets is pretty accurate. Given that it has a good chance of being a draw, I bet with a made hand. If we bet he likely folds his draws and raises his monsters. Raising his min-bet accomplishes nothing since we want him to his draw. We can essentially overpush a heart river knowing he will call a good percentage of the time.

[hockeyf]

Treat his bet as a check. Would you bet the turn or check.

[WhiteWolf]

It's player dependent on how they will react when their weak lead is raised, but given that he's already called a decent-sized flop bet, the chance that he folds to a turn raise has to be discounted. Combine this with the fact that you're drawing to the nuts favors taking the cheap price he just set for seeing the river card.

[Antinome]

Turn is a very easy semibluff, since he just turned his hand over as a very weak hand or draw. These guys fold to a raise here almost always. Forget about your draw, your fold equity is bigger than your draw equity in this spot. Take the free money.

On the river, after being checked to, with me having represented a big hand all the way, and him representing a draw that just missed at least 50% of the time, I'm always putting in the third barrel.

[megatron]

[ QUOTE ]
Your read about low bets is pretty accurate. Given that it has a good chance of being a draw, I bet with a made hand. If we bet he likely folds his draws and raises his monsters. Raising his min-bet accomplishes nothing since we want him to his draw. We can essentially overpush a heart river knowing he will call a good percentage of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually thought the draw was more likely to be a club draw that had come on the turn.

I am thinking I should have taken the cheap card. The turn minbet lead after flop betting is a far rarer occurence than the flop min bet lead and like I said, in my experience means either strength desperate for a raise or a draw. That being the case I don't think my bet folds anything here. The type that plays a draw like this isn't folding it, I don't think.

I think all my turn bet achieved was the risk of getting raised off the hand by the monster when I should have taken the cheap card and stacked him when I hit.

[megatron]

[ QUOTE ]
Turn is a very easy semibluff, since he just turned his hand over as a very weak hand or draw. These guys fold to a raise here almost always. Forget about your draw, your fold equity is bigger than your draw equity in this spot. Take the free money.

On the river, after being checked to, with me having represented a big hand all the way, and him representing a draw that just missed at least 50% of the time, I'm always putting in the third barrel.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have certainly fired the 3rd barrel as it went. Maybe I don't have enough examples of min turn leads in this situation but I've been check raised all-in numerous times when I've raised them so I wasn't too sure that it was a weak hand (apart from a draw).

[WhiteWolf]

[ QUOTE ]

On the river, after being checked to, with me having represented a big hand all the way, and him representing a draw that just missed at least 50% of the time, I'm always putting in the third barrel.

[/ QUOTE ]
We shouldn't bluff with a bluff-catcher. We have the nut no pair. We already beat most of his missed draws, so we're not gaining much equity from trying to bluff out those holdings. Since he's already called 2 decent sized bets earlier, it's doubtful he's going to fold the legitimate hands that beat us. In short, we never get called by a hand that we beat and only rarely fold out a hand that beats us. This isn't a profitable combination for putting money in on the river. Of course, thanks to OP posting his results (OP: Please don't do this, or if you do don't do it in your original post!), we see it probably would have worked here, but the great majority of the time a river bet has 0 or negative equity.

[checktheriver]

I like the turn bet, but you have to continue with a 3rd barrell, you won't get check-raised that often if he hit his draw anyway.

[Khaos4k]

What the hell is he calling on flop that hits a club draw on the turn? As stupid as villains are, they rarely call with naked backdoor flush draws. Usually when they hit their backdoor, they had a pair on the flop. If he had kings, he bets bigger on turn. If he had a pair of 2's he's folding pf/flop.