A lot of weakish players will broadcast their hand strength with their bet sizing especially when in position on the river. Thus, I sometimes like to check to them without a specific plan. Instead, I want to see what they do and then decide whether to raise for value, raise as a bluff, call, or fold.
For what it’s worth, I’ve also noticed that I’m rarely happy with my decision later when I choose call. Anyway, here are two hands where I turned a hand with some showdown value into a bluff based on how my opponent bet the river:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BB: $990
UTG: $1,502.50
UTG+1: $165
MP1: $1,043.75
MP2: $1,832.55
CO: $1,119
BTN: $1,117
Hero (SB): $1,672
Pre-Flop: 7
7
dealt to Hero (SB)
4 folds, CO raises to $35, BTN folds, Hero calls $30, BB folds
Flop: ($80) 5 9
3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $50, Hero calls $50
Turn: ($180) Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks
River: ($180) 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $100, Hero raises to $387, CO folds
Results: $380 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked 7 7 and WON $377 (+$192 NET)
Pretty blatant from his line and bet-sizing that he was trying to make a thinnish value bet with like KQ or an overpair or something. I will often go for a river check-raise with a flush if I wasn’t able to get it in on the turn, and after a bet like that, I might even check-raise stuff like two-pair for value. Hey, it’s almost like there’s a good reason not to turn your hand face up on the river!
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
CO: $157
BTN: $200
Hero (SB): $1,043
BB: $315
UTG: $4,828.75
MP: $1,015
Pre-Flop: 6 6 dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG raises to $35, 3 folds, Hero calls $30, BB folds
Flop: ($80) 5 9 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG checks
Turn: ($80) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $58, UTG calls $58
River: ($196) A (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $100, Hero raises to $350, UTG folds
Results: $396 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked 6 6 and WON $393 (+$200 NET)
Pretty much the same thing as above, though I checked thinking he might try to value bet the Ace (if he had Ahxh or A8 or even like AK that he couldn’t bring himself to fold on the turn) or bluff a busted draw, and that I could make more money from either of those by checking than firing again as a bluff. Based on the bet sizing, I didn’t think it was a busted draw, so I elected to raise as a bluff rather than call hoping to catch a bluff.
Checkraises on the river seem so weak that they almost always get called. Not sure how you ge away with it. Unless villians are on total air.
Why do you say it seems weak? I tend to assume a river c/r is strong unless I have good reason to think otherwise. As with any kind of bluff, the key to getting away with it is executing it in a way that is consistent with a stronger hand. In both examples, I tried to indicate what made hands I could plausibly play in the same way. And based on the bet sizing, I am quite sure neither of these opponents was on total air.
This certainly isn’t to say that all my river check-raise bluffs succeed. If they did, I wouldn’t be bluffing often enough. I’ll try to post some failures soon.