The way you fix this is to get
reads on the player before the
river.
People usually play drawing hands a certain way. For instance, let's
say you are dealt:
Jc Jd
and the
flop brings:
Ts 6s 3h
You have two opponents and you are first to bet.
You bet a hearty 5xBB and get a
call and a
fold.
What does that
tell you? Somone has a hand. The board looks like a
flush draw. Someone may be slowplaying 66, seeing that you have a strong
pair.
Turn comes as 7c.
You
check. He checks. Bingo! He's on the
draw. A
set or
two pair would bet out here fearing that you might
improve on the
river card or that you may be on the
flush draw yourself!
Now if another spade comes out you
check and see what he comes
back
with. Typically he will
value bet you or go
all-in to try and ellicit a
bluff catch.
If the spade doesn't show what should you do? Alot of folks bet the
river hoping the opp has paired along the way and may want to make a further donation. I will sometimes do this but I usually just get a
fold unless he feels like a
bluff. But a
bluff here is very easy to
catch so that doesn't worry me too much.