Down to heads-up, against a very poor player. Although my impression of him is poor, I believe he is good enough to know when they are beaten, hence my river bet. Foolish, or okay?

FullTiltPoker Game $5 + $0.50 6-Man Sit & Go
120/240 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 2: Hero (5,130)
Seat 6: Villain (3,870)
Villain posts the small blind of 120
Hero posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Kh Qs]
Villain calls 120
Hero checks
*** FLOP *** [9d 8h 3d] (480 in Pot)
Hero bets 480
Villain calls 480
*** TURN *** [9d 8h 3d] [7d] (1440 in Pot)
Hero checks
Villain checks
*** RIVER *** [9d 8h 3d 7d] [Jc] [color=#3333FF](1440 in Pot)
Hero bets 500???

Not sure - his call on the flop make JT or two diamonds very real possibilities, as done his turn check, a move made often by a poor player with the nuts.

Having said that, I doubt he'd call you with anything less than a straight here, so as long as that happens 1 in 3 times you're good...in fact, I might even bet less, perhaps the minimum, because even a lot of bad players would fold A9 to a minimum bet here....and, if he's gonna call 250, he'll probably call 500....so why not bet the minimum required to obtain the same results.

That thinking right there is the reason I bet about 1/3 of the pot, as opposed to a larger bet. The min-bet I think would be called many more times with the current chip stacks than the 500 I put in...

Have you given any thought to raising big pf?
I'm not sure if that is a good play or no here, I'm not a great HU player so if you explain your thought process throughout the hand that would help

I like to play small-ball poker to see a flop if I can, especially against players I know I am better than, and especially when I will not have position in the hand. If I put in a raise here with my holdings pre-flop, I don't anticipate being able to call a push by my opponent (not that I honestly think he would limp-push with aces or the like). I don't like to build bigger pots when out of position.

Unless I flop a strong hand, I will most likely be putting in a probe bet to most any flop, which I would think would be hard for my opponent to call unless they caught at least middle pair or a strong draw.

Simply put, as I see it, this is a board play, rather than a read play.

A player of any quality can't call here unless he has AT LEAST a straight (or a fantastic read)...a guy with JQ should have a very hard time calling this bet...so put the decision to him.

WIth this 500 bet...if he does that four times he only needs one fold to show a profit.

i like the bet. i think its getting called or raised though.

i might call you here just out of plain curiousity and pot odds with something like Ace high lol.

Villain calls and showed [Js Ad]

I think it was a terrible call on their part...