$2 NLHE Full Ring: The villain's big bet on the river vs a pair of sixes, the fourth pair on the table

[Vallet]

$2 NLHE Full Ring: The villain's big bet on the river vs a pair of sixes, the fourth pair on the table

I found this hand interesting. Because my range was wide on the preflop and I had to make a difficult decision on the river. It took about a minute to think.
What can such a big bet mean? I thought it wasn't a pair of sevens, not eights. The villain would definitely raise with a straight, two pairs and a set on the previous streets, because my bets were small 30% of the pot. The only thing I cared about was whether he had a king or an unexpected set of threes, for example. However, many draws did not close and high cards did not come. This could be an excuse to bluff, so I made a call.
I am interested to know your train of thought about this hand. Are you making a call or fold here? and why?


Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 8 players

UTG: $2.56 (128 bb)
UTG+1: $1.78 (89 bb)
MP: $3.75 (188 bb)
MP+1: $2.32 (116 bb)
CO (Hero): $1.42 (71 bb)
BU: $0.71 (36 bb)
SB: $4.79 (240 bb)
BB: $1.50 (75 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with 6♣ 9♦
4 players fold, Hero raises to $0.06, 2 players fold, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.13) 7♥ 6♠ 8♥ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.04, BB calls $0.04

Turn: ($0.21) K♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.06, BB calls $0.06

River: ($0.33) 3♣ (2 players)
BB bets $0.32, Hero calls $0.32

Total pot: $0.97 (Rake: $0.03)

Showdown:

 

[300HPGOD]

I dont like the way you played Pre, flop, and turn and the river is debatable. I would be folding pre here with 69 off. Full ring you can be tight with it being 9 handed. Unless you know all 3 behind you are super nits then its best to just fold here and play a better hand.

The flop as played can go either way. I dont mind checking here since we have the draw and the board is rainbow but I also like betting to see if we can fold out overcards or get value from someone who floats or gets sticky with some weird 10x. I think I lean towards betting but if you are going to bet there bet an amount that will get some folds so I like 7 cents into the 13 cent pot.

The turn as played I think is an easy check behind. Board is Badugi and we have showdown value with the pair plus still a draw we can hit. Villains range is still somewhat wide coming from the BB so I would take the free card here and see what the river brings.

River as played is strictly villain dependent and what you know about them. Readless I would fold and if they bluffed then at least they bluffed you out of a relatively small pot and you move on making a note on the villain. Last night I had a villain doing this to me potting the river. First time I folded a pair when there was one overcard on the board (debatable fold) but I had not seen villain do this before or played them before so I took the readless approach of folding. 5 mins later similar scenario came up I had top pair and board paired river and then potted into me. This time I called since I had seen them do it once and wanted to make them have it. They turned over biscuits and I took the pot. Point Im trying to make is you need to know something about villain to make this call in my opinion. Play with them long enough and you will know whether they do this a lot or only sparingly. They do this again in a similar spot you should be more open to calling.

 

[John A]

Fold pre... ya, if someone is just calling small bets on this texture, and then suddenly pots a blank river, he's probably FOS, so a call is fine.

 

[Vallet]

Despite the weak pair, my thinking did not let me down.

Showdown:
BB shows Q♥ J♠ (high card, King)
(equity - Pre-Flop: 66%, Flop: 24%, Turn: 14%, River: 0%)

CO (Hero) shows 6♣ 9♦ (a pair of Sixes)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 34%, Flop: 76%, Turn: 86%, River: 100%)

CO (Hero) wins $0.94

 

[Mercurius]

I think the 1/3 pot and 1/3 pot bets screams "drawing" - at least one needed to be 1/2 pot and I'd have been inclined to do that on the flop given you've already got a pair in the bank and OESD.

Given the bet you made on the flop you had to bet bigger on the turn to try and force them out as there are a lot more bad rivers than good and it's hard to fold people out on the river at low stakes if they have anything.

Given your bets signposted you were drawing from the flop and the run out did nothing to complete the straight / flush there's a pretty good chance they're bluffing you on the river, but that said I think calling down big bets with 4th pair is a long term losing strategy...

 

[Vallet]

I think the 1/3 pot and 1/3 pot bets screams "drawing" - at least one needed to be 1/2 pot and I'd have been inclined to do that on the flop given you've already got a pair in the bank and OESD.

Given the bet you made on the flop you had to bet bigger on the turn to try and force them out as there are a lot more bad rivers than good and it's hard to fold people out on the river at low stakes if they have anything.

Given your bets signposted you were drawing from the flop and the run out did nothing to complete the straight / flush there's a pretty good chance they're bluffing you on the river, but that said I think calling down big bets with 4th pair is a long term losing strategy...

Definitely such decisions on the river are very difficult. Especially if you don't have a HUD. So I took a long pause. Small bets allowed me to control the size of the pot and make a decision about the call in case the opponent bluffs. The more wrong calls, the more often we lose. But we can't let the opponent win pots by bluffing.:angel: