Bear with me for the moment, as some of the facts on this hand may be a little off, since i'm retelling it from memory.

As some of you may know by now, river betting is (IMO) my biggest leak - i have such a difficult time deciding when and how much to bet on the river. This hand illustrates an example of this.

I have a full stack. my opponent is sitting on about $25. he's a little loose, but i haven't seen him do anything real dumb (or clever for that matter) as of yet.

I'm in the SB with [4h]. my opponent limped after an EP limper in the CO button comes too. BB checks. . 5 way flop. $2.50 in the pot.

flop: [5s][Jh]. I lead out with $2. folds to the CO who smooth calls the bet. Heads up to hte turn.

$6.50 pot. . well, this could be a real ugly card. STill, I bet $4 He smooth calls the bet again. hmm...

$14.50 pot. . This is where i'm stuck. i don't want to call an all in here, as i can easily see him slowplaying a hand like [Js] on the turn with having position on me. I also don't want to check and lose money from AxJx. what's your play? Results in white below.


I bet $7.50 and resigned myself to calling if he raised off his stack, simply because i hadn't seen him chasing flushes in the 10 minutes i had played with him. He called and mucked his AsJc.

~Dustin

I probably would have slowed down after being smooth called twice (fearing that he was slowplaying the flush), but I bet if you do that he checks behind you. One thing that online poker has done to my game that I hate is that it has given me The Fear. I'm continuously trying to fix that problem and get back to a more acceptable (and profitable) level of aggression.

This is a good time IMO for a blocking bet, make it $5, if he calls you win, if he goes back over the top you fold.