A friend of mine was watching me play and commented on a hand I played. He could not see my cards but he was very curious as to what I had, the line was interesting. Anyways I raised on the button, both blinds called. The smallblind donked out for 2/3 pot or whatever, the big blind folded, and made the call. The smallblind is a player to sometimes donk out with nothing and sometimes bet to see where hes at with random hands he feels like doing so with. The turn card came, he checked, and so did I. The river came, he checked, and then I made an atrociously small bet like for example 500 into 2400. I did not have the nuts, I did not even have two pairs beat, but if he shoved on me I was going to beat him into the pot.

Now, take all that in, and consider any possible scenario where this might have been optimal. now, scroll down and I will explain why I make this play sometimes and with what.




In order to accomplish this play you have to be vs a pretty specific player, the board has to run out in a certain way, and your opponent has to completely lose his mind on the river. But hey, people love clicking buttons and small raises and bets tilt people, so why not?

anyways, example hand, tell me if this is good. Lets say we are midway though a $150 online tournament. The blinds are 250 500 with ante. We don't know what the relevant players think of us other than we raise frequently preflop, generally follow up with a cbet on the flop, but we like playing small pots. If they have paid attention this is what they perceive. It folds to us on the button and we have, say, the small blind has 20k, the big blind has 25k. We cover cause we are awesome. We make a raise, to lets say 1200. the blinds both call.

The flop comes,
decent flop but we don't want to play a big pot obviously, were pretty deep so lets proceed with caution.

Small blind checks, and then the big blind decides to bet out, to something like 2000. I think he does this with a top pair type hand very rarely, lets say this specific time his timing and bet size led me even further to believe this would be true. Also, assuming he is paying attention he must assume I am going to bet the flop in this situation a high % of the time. I think he can have random air sometimes, a flush draw a lot, and then sometimes have a hand like 55, 66, just trying to take the pot down. A very small % of the time he flopped tripps or better and is trying to induce.

we make the call.

the turn is a

He checks quickly. A lot of people like to bet here, a lot of people like to check and call rivers. I like to check and call rivers, so lets say we do that.

The river is a harmless

He checks. What is everyone's "standard" play here? A lot of people would check, because with our read and his probable range he just isn't going to call with worse and it's not bad for our image to show down the best hand. Were also never going to bluff him off the (very unlikely, given our read) chop. It's very hard for him to call a bet here, even if he has a random jack, so I don't blame you if you are in the check camp.

Some people would always bet because they feel they should always bet when they know they have the best hand. they know that they rarely get called by worse and sometimes (albiet very rarely) get valepwned by better, but they still feel it's worth a bet given how likely it is we have our opponent beat. Hey I'm a poker player I cant fault that reasoning either.

But what if we bet small. Really small....Like what if we bet 900? what if we tanked, then MINBET!

Why would this be good? Well for one, people love to do dumb shit all the time. A lot of people just look at that small bet, turn off their thought process, and turn whatever they have into a bluff and come over the top. they think we are valuebetting, "valuebluffing", or just straight up trying to buy the pot for cheap. There is a missed flush draw on the flop. They think this because bad players employ this small bet all of the time. they can put us on what we have, a hand like Jx, KK, QQ, and missed flush draws. in a amateur players eyes, this is what our most likely hands are given that this is exactly the bet they might make with these hands, yet they think we cant stand a check raise.

Another reason for making this play would be to induce a crying call from all of the hands that snapfold to a normal bet. sure it's only a few more chips, but those chips add up.

anyways that's it. what do you guys think?

I wish I played enough tournaments to join the debate, does no tourney player here have an opinion on this?

I think the biggest question is, what are stack sizes. In this situation, the reads are important, but was his 2/3's pot bet on the flop standard for his bluffing on past hands (that seems a little large for a bluff). Did you have him covered? How much of your stack are you calling with here. In this situation, I see far more (even donks) c/r shove the river with the nuts or very close to it. This line looks far more like 43s to me then anything else and the check on the turn was more to induce a bet by you then anything...why the check on the river you say? Because a lot of people can't sit by when a person checks 2 streets and there is a decent sized pot. A4 is a likely holding as well...Either way, unless I have him as a spewtard or an aggro maniac, I am not calling that shove...if it's only 1/4 my stack....possibly, but since it's not stated I doubt that, that small of a stack probably is trying to get it in pre...

Either way, without stack sizes, it's hard to determine, but I say he shows up with a huge hand more often then not....

Either way, I don't mind a check down here...you have a very marginal hand with TPNK...(your kicker doesn't play)...either way, i think you're chopping the pot or you've lost....I hardly ever think you're winning it all here...again, read specific obviously....did I mention stack sizes are important here...