I'm almost certain I have the best hand on the river. Unfortunately, I am first to act and have no idea how to extract the max out my opponent.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FCP)

Hero ($4.75)
UTG ($0.94)
MP1 ($9.69)
MP2 ($1.86)
CO ($5.14)
Button ($5.65)
SB ($8.84)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5 , 2 .
1 fold, MP1 calls $0.02, MP2 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.07) 3 , 6 , 4 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.05, MP1 calls $0.05, MP2 folds.

Turn: ($0.17) J (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $0.1, Hero raises to $0.35, MP1 calls $0.25.

River: ($0.87) K (2 players)
Hero ?

Bet $0.80 ish.

Is that king a scare card to a pair of jacks? I say bet 2 bucks. Make it look like a steal. If he has the pair of jacks like we suspect, he'll prob pay of 2 dollars. What else would we get paid off by?

A set
Two pair

None of which we can put him on, because he probably would've raised the turn. With his call on the flop, and then bet on the turn we can assume one of two things. Either he had a hand like J5, called when he was open ended, and then lead out when he was open ended with TP. Or he's an idiot.


I'm just not sure if I get paid off more with a c/r on the river, or if I just lead out. Does the K scare him if he has the J?

I lead out for a pot size bet, maybe a little more. I want to get paid off for this hand. I don't like check raising at all here, he might have a J he's willing to call with but scared to bet.

I'm generally a fan of betting in most cases at this level, you'll find a lot of calling stations that can't release a hand.

A $2 bet into an 0.87 pot really doesn't look like a steal. If your think in terms of BBs and pot sizes this is a horrible bet that really would only be paid off by a big hand. Say you change the bets to a $200 bet into an $87 dollar pot and maybe this would be clearer.

I like a bet of 0.8 as well

.75 to .80 is about right.

This kind of bet works more often than you could believe. It looks like a steal because it looks like we don't want a call and therefore over bet the pot in an attempt to discourage one. Our opponent thinks why would we bet that much if we had the nuts, they'd expect us to make a smaller value bet. Even most .01/.02 NL players are competent enough to realize this bet this just add up. Then, their natural curiosity or desire to pick off a bluff kicks in, and they pay you off with a wide range of hands. I don't have the hand history but last weekend I was messing around playing .01/.02 NL on stars while drinking. I picked up AJ in the BB, didn't raise two limpers, because they call everytime and I don't want to play out of position. On the flop I hit top two and open shoved a $5 stack into and $0.07 pot. I got called by a $3 stack with bottom pair! Catching a bluff means more to these people than the stack of chips in front of them. Just looking at the math if we were to bet $0.80 and get called say 75% of the time, our EV is $0.60. Now if we bet $2 we only need to get called 30% of the time to show the same EV of $0.60. While it depends on the player I say we get paid off on the over bet atleast 30% of the time. I'd actually estimate we get paid off about 50% of the time with the over bet making it a greater EV play over the long run.

Well I decided to lead out. Made a bet of $.55, and villain folded.

Fish don't think in terms of BBs and pot sizes. They think, 2 bucks is nothing, I have a pair, CALL.