From reading Dave Scharf's posts on UPF and some 2+2 I have encountered a new concept that I played almost literally counter to and I was wondering what ya'll think.

Basically it involves calling with a weak-medium strength hand on the turn and mucking to a river bet. The thinking is that they may be betting the turn with a worse hand than you but are unlikely to bet both the turn AND river with a worse hand.

could you possibly post a link?

anyway, i imagine someone like MK will make a mint off of an opponent playing this way.

betting drawing hands (e.g., OESD, flush, draw to a draw if you are MK, etc.) on the turn is not uncommon, and the drawing hand has no idea what you are playing -- maybe you're on a draw, too. as such, a missed draw is supposed to bet out on the river at least some of the time, right? maybe the other drawing hand missed, too, and you can get them to fold.

i would consider this to be an opponent-specific play. that is, someone who has demonstrated that they usually have at least a certain level of hand (e.g., TPTK or better) before they initiate aggression.

or better yet, i might mix this kind of play into a probability mix of possible plays -- for example, do it 25% of the time i encounter it.

Whoah i just noticed this thread. Xas, i like this concept, and honestly, some of the high limit players i know (like my roomate for example who plays the 300 600 UB games) do this all the time. HOwever, stick and kuso are right, that if your opponent notices you folding alot on the river he's going to fire the last barrel at you pretty often.

But, i definitely have seen this and i have been been doing it a bit- and it definitely isnt something that you should too often because it looks too weak, but i dont mind this move too much.

Its kindof opponent specific, like kuso so insightfully mentioned- against a real mizor (ie me apparently) you are going to have to payoff your marginal hands, but against most TAG type players, i think this play is fine.

is there any kind of "play" value for this? that is, does this same line of play allow you to get extra bets out of someone down the road somewhere?

e.g., if you only call on the turn with a strong hand, and then raise on the river, are you more likely to be called due to the fact that you layed down before? or are you less likely to be called?

does this make sense?


or is the value purely in using your position to save a bet.

OKay heres a good example of this play, although im not sure if he wouldve ended up calling me or not- i had just sat and had no real read except that he had a big stack, and was all talkative, which lead me to beleive he was somewhat of a bully, but who knows.

Dealt to AKsoGay [ 5h Ac ]
tinydonkey folds.
BusDrvr1734 folds.
SwooshBK folds.
sandisk folds.
gooseduck123 raises [$15].
AKsoGay calls [$10].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc, 9s, 7d ]
gooseduck123 bets [$10].
AKsoGay raises [$20].
gooseduck123 calls [$10].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3c ]
gooseduck123: fking 3 times QQ lost all
gooseduck123 checks.
AKsoGay bets [$20].
gooseduck123 calls [$20].
** Dealing River ** [ 4d ]
gooseduck123 checks.
AKsoGay checks.
gooseduck123 shows [ Qs, Ad ] high card ace.
AKsoGay doesn't show [ 5h, Ac ] high card ace.
gooseduck123 wins $117 from the main pot with high card ace with queen kicker.


I want to say hed have called his AQ high to the river, since he called the turn with no real draw at all, but at the same time, its not an easy call to make on that board at all...so he may have been making the play, and if he was then it worked for him. ALthough he may have just been stationing me down, who knows--

OK, I've been trying to do some Sklansky-esque thinking on this topic. It's not very good, but...

If you hold the weak-medium hand, you have to hold the losing hand with the following frequency or more for a fold to be right:

4bb pot = 80%
5bb pot = 83%
6bb pot = 86%

As MK said, for certain TAG or weak players, it might not be that difficult to put them on a hand with this degree of consistency. I think this is often especially true if they raise on the river.

The problem with this plan is that even you only fold 50% of the time this situation arises, your fold-to-river-bet stats are going to increase rapidly. I think this is where it gets interesting.

If you are the other player and you're debating on whether to bet or not, one quick helper in the decision making is to peek at the fold-to-river-bet stat. If this number is 20% or higher, one should almost always bet out on the river -- even with missed draws. Furthermore, if the opponent is not representing strength, then this target number could probably even be closer to 15% (assuming that the opponent usually has a weakish holding that he is willing to fold to pressure).

Maybe I'm not thinking about this fold-to-river-bet stat correctly. It seems like most of the people's stats at the .5/1 level on Party are in the 30%-60% range (chasing lots of missed draws or overcards?). I would really welcome some enlightening commentary on this topic.

Anyway, if they can do this kind of thinking, then maybe they aren't pure TAG players and/or weak play -- seemingly a requirement for this play to be good.

Xas, do you have a link to that thread?

Actually, I'm going to start a new thread on the fold-to-river-bet stat... please continue commentary there.

Actually, I started a ... please continue commentary on this topic there.

It's not one specific thread. It's just something commented on frequently when dealing with river bets over there.