PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9, T.
Hero calls, 4 folds, BB checks.

Flop: (2.50 SB) 4, 6, 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls.

Turn: (2.25 BB) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls.

River: (5.25 BB) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB raises. Hero ???


========================

If you don't have a read on your opponent, what would you do?

Please advise

-cm

I had a very similar hand that I posted here (I believe you responded to it). I'm starting to agree that villain has you beat here a lot of the time. Couple that with the fact that the pot is small and your hand is very marginal, I think you should fold here.

I'll only call this if I've seen villain pull this off before with junk.

What's with PF? Is the table real LAP or something?

Fold the river. 8:1 with 2nd pair weak kicker is not enough.

Yeah.
Everyone seemed to be wanting to see cheap flops in this session.

And I hadn't open-limped in a month and a half...
so I figured I'd give it a shot.

--cm

BB flopped the joint

I'm never in this spot because I either raise or fold preflop.

But I pay off the raise.

Why? Because people are idiots and my WTSD% is over 40

Raise or fold preflop.

I too will chide you for limping UTG.

After that, I think I check the river. I don't see a lot of worse hands paying you off, but it's a good chance for someone to bluff at you.

Now that I am back in town, I will follow up on this post.


aim786 Posted Thursday, May 18th, 2006, 11:04 PM
I had a very similar hand that I posted here (I believe you responded to it)...

Yes.

You started a discussion regarding the idea of calling a check-raise on river.
Previous Post

In your example, you had TPTK in a 9BB pot.
But many people felt that despite the size of the pot, it wasn't practical to call this down.

The logic was that players simply don't bluff-check-raise the river.
So it would be best to fold and save the extra bet.

Some of the remarks:








aim786 Posted Thursday, May 18th, 2006, 11:04 PM
I'm starting to agree that villain has you beat here a lot of the time. Couple that with the fact that the pot is small and your hand is very marginal, I think you should fold here.

There are certainly differences between my example and the one discussed previously.

1) We only have a weak 2nd pair.
So while in the first example, we could still beat a foolish check-raise value bet if he had Top Pair with a worse kicker, here we can beat only a bluff.

2) The pot is even smaller than the first example.
This makes the bluff check-raise even less likely.


So it seems even less correct to call down here.

Nevertheless...





... the idiot factor at this level remains relevant.

And while I'm not necessarily claiming that this example should be a call, I did want to demonstrate a very odd river bluff-check-raise.

This hand came shortly after the previous discussion of this topic.
So I called down out of curiosity.
And he turned over Q8.

A random hand.
He had nothing.
I don't know why he was even calling along.
Maybe with the sole intention of making this play on the river?
Maybe he saw me fold to this play once long ago.
I don't know.
But these guys and these plays do exist.

--cm

I would think that you would have to pay off more at higher levels against an unknown because the players are on average, so much more aggressive. Still, this is a fold at almost every level without a read.



Yeah, I've seen even passive players do weird random **** like this. But you can't pay off like a donkey everytime just in case. The reason is that most unknowns aren't raising a worse hand 1:x times on this river. So while you may have caught a bluff here, calling in these spots is a losing play.

A better approach may be to apply Harringtons law to limit. Assume an average unknown river bluff raises here 5% of the time and play accordingly.



Of course they do. And I think this is a good example, not only because you won , but because it shows that a certain % of the time an unknown will be bluffing in this spot. So basically, when the pot is big, and you have a good hand, don't fold. (Note: 10BB's is probably not enough to always call a river raise with something like TP. You should occassionally call, but your default play should be to fold. Second pair should be an instamuck.)

At a higher level though, wouldn't there be less 'unknowns'? Assuming you got to that level by skill of course. You would be be able to pick up more of a line on somebody than the random dumbness of low level shmoes