Not Content to Check the River

With the blinds at 200/400, I had been limping a lot, playing a good amount of pots, staying pretty active, showing a few bluffs. Recently I had bet three streets on a bluff and showed on the river, so my image is pretty loose at this point. I decided to try limping some more and playing smaller pots because I knew that I was going to get called.

So I limped K-10 in mid-position. Isaac Haxton, who's a really good player and a friend of mine, limped behind me. Everyone else folds and the big blind checks. Flop comes 10-4-2 with two spades; I have K-10 with no spades. Check to me. I bet 1,000, Isaac Haxton calls, and the big blind calls. Turn comes an off-suit 3 – so it's 10-4-2-3, still 2 spades. Big blind checks. I bet 4,000, a pretty big bet. I wanted to bet the size of the pot. I wanted to do this for two reasons: A) Protect my hand, and B) Make it look like I'm on a flush draw, because they're not going to think I'm betting big with a marginal hand. I also wanted to get heads-up with one of them or just take the pot down right there. I didn't want them both to call me because there aren't too many good river cards for my hand: any spade hurts me, a lot of overcards might hurt me, a straight might hurt me… a lot of cards are scary for my hand.

I decided to bet pretty big and try to get it heads up. Isaac Haxton called behind me pretty quickly and the big blind also called. At this point I'm thinking that Isaac has a 10 and the big blind probably has a flush draw because he overcalled twice. I don't think the big blind has any sort of made hand. He would definitely put a raise in on the turn, or raise it on the flop with two-pair or better. And since he checked the big blind I'm not putting him on A-10 really. I think he has a worse 10, but I think he'd fold that on the turn. So I think he has a pair and a draw, something like 7-4 or 5-4 of spades, something like that, getting priced in to call. I'm hoping for an off-suit blank on the river and reevaluate from there.

River comes a blank: 7 of clubs. The big blind checks. I'm pretty sure he missed his draw but I still think there might be value behind me from Isaac Haxton. My hand looks like a draw and Isaac knows as well as I do that the big blind doesn't have anything. I figure if I bet close to the pot, he might think that I'm triple-barreling on a bluff again and he might call thinking his 10 is good. And he knows that if he calls, even if the big blind has a 10, he's going to fold if there's a bet and a call ahead of him; he might even fold the better hand.

I think about it for a while and bet 12,500 into like 15,000. Isaac pretty quickly calls me; he called so quickly that I thought there was a slight chance my hand wasn't good even though I was making a fairly thin value bet. The big blind folds like I'd planned, and I showed K-10 and Isaac flashed 10-9 to me and I won a big pot.

I think the interesting part is that a lot of people would check the river because it's three-way and they'd be scared someone else has a better hand, but if you really think about the hand and break it down and use some hand-reading, you can conclude it's a pretty good spot for value betting, especially if you know your opponent. A good player like Isaac Haxton is definitely capable of reading hands just as well, or even better, than me and I know he knows that a lot of my range is a flush draw or middle pairs and straight draws, any pair and a flush draw, any straight draw and a flush draw. And he knows I might bet that on the river knowing that if he folds the big blind is going to fold. So I really think that worked out to my advantage this hand, and I was able to make a thin value-bet and get a lot of chips out of it. At the time it was like 25 or 30 big blinds on the river, which is a huge amount to get in that spot. So I was really happy about that.

I have a few more hands but I'll talk about those later…

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