I’m out of position and I haven’t narrowed my opponents range down. At least if I 3bet and I meet resistance I know I don’t have them outkicked and am up against AK, AA or a bluff.

I think he will check behind the river some portion of the time with his aces and definitely with his mid pair hands. I don’t want to see that happen because I think he calls with both of those hands a higher portion of the time when he bets the flop.

In the example where the flop is checked around I am assuming that we bet the turn and get called by the preflop raiser. In that case I would be more apt to check the river when the draws miss than if he were to bet the flop because I read him to have a busted draw a much higher percentage of the time.

In general, I like betting the river OOP unless I have a really good read that the guy will bluff and stuff like that because I think most players will make more calls on the river with hands than I beat than they will bluff hands that I beat(and check behind hands that I beat and then I’m missing value).

Well said sir, well said.

I agree completely with you. The only reason I want to check raise the flop is to drive out the MP knowing he would only do so with a worse hand. I’m not interested in his money at all, its the SB I’m after. With MP safely out of the picture, I’m more comfortable committing against the SB.

Yes the MP can punish us, even with a worse hand, that’s the value of position, but that’s also why I wanted to 3 bet him preflop- to try driving him out cheaper.

As I said, if MP calls my flop check/raise, that would tell me he has a better hand, and I’m check-folding the Turn unimproved.

The biggest tragedy here would MP having a better hand, taking SB’s stack, then SB leaves the table and we never see him again.

If it goes check/call, check/check I generally prefer to check/call the river against an aggressive villain. We have a good hand against his range and the villain will rep an A so often with that line even if he doesn’t have it. I really think most A’s are going to try to get two streets of value. It would be very hard for him to put us on AQ. I think I probably check to induce too much, though.

Are you thinking that he is going to check behind on the river if we don’t bet with his weaker A’s and 2nd pair hands? I think this is a matter of balancing the times he would bet with air vs the times he would check behind with 2nd pair on the river, but would still call a bet.

How did we get to the river?

If it gets check through, I’m bet-folding the turn on a scare card. On a safe card I’ll bet-call. I’m probably check-calling the river either way.