The river overbet

Wondering what you guys recommend doing with this, or if there's even a consistently profitable approach to recommend.

The situation: by the turn or river you have a strong hand. Let's keep it simple here and say it's a straight. Your hand: KQ of clubs. The board: Jd 10h 8d 3c Ad. You led the betting pre-flop and had two callers; by the turn one had folded (as you led with a continuation bet on your open-ended straight draw). The river is the A which gives you a straight but also puts a flush possibility out there. You have position on the last remaining player. He has never yet played back at you; called the pre-flop raise, called the semi-bluff on the flop. You checked it through on the turn.

When the A lands on the river, he leads out with his first act of aggression, a big bet that almost puts him all-in. It's a ridiculous overbet if he made the flush (well, it's ridiculous no matter what he has... but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Do you call with the straight, or fold to the bet?

My thinking goes like this: the overbet indicates a likely bluff or semi-bluff. His hand is very probably not as strong as the flush he's repping with that bet. However, a smart player (and let's assume you don't know how smart he is) might do the exact same move hoping for a call when you misread it as a bluff; or a really bad fish might overbet because hey, it's a flush, exciting! It's hard to say what percentage of players are smart enough to try this as a move, or what percentage is dumb/new enough to overbet like that when completing the flush. If I knew it would be easier to calculate an approximate cost/profit of calling this bet.

Also the bet itself is a problem, precisely because it's an overbet. In this example let's say it's a pot-sized bet. He's giving you 2-1 pot odds on the call, which means it has to be a bluff or semi-bluff (no flush) 1 time out of 3 for you to break even. So you don't have to be sure it's a bluff, but you better be pretty confident that a lot of the time it will be a bluff.

I'll post what I did and the results in a bit.

Based on him limping along without any playback to hide his draw, I'd say you'll either split the pot or he caught the flush. Depends on whether your read is that he could bluff on scary rivers as to whether I'd call. Only if he has a history of bluffing would I call. It depends if you think that the possibility of a bluff is high enough that it is worth risking an overcall for a possible split pot or worse... I think without any more information, I would fold here. He played the hand like a fish, why pay him off when he bets like one hitting the miracle river?

- sed

Another very rare but possible scenario is that he had pocket aces, and when the river came down and gave him trip aces, he either a.) If he was inexperienced, got excited and made a big bet thinking you would call, not thinking you might have a straight, or b.) He was fairly smart and knew you might have the straight and tried to steal the pot with you thinking he had the flush.

But I agree with sed that because of his prior play that he probably caught the flush.

As it turns out - I called him after much thought, on the idea that there was a good enough chance that it was a bluff to justify it even with the steep pot odds. Bizarrely, he had 10 3 (two pair) and I won.

wow... would you have given a free river on that board catching 2 pair on the turn? Guy must have switched to a bigger bong today...

- sed

Yeah, his play was absolutely mystifying. Maybe he thought to check-raise there since I had been leading the betting.

Why did you check on the turn? If you through out a semi bluff on the flop, might as well through one out on the turn. From the vague discription of the hand, you made a hefty bet on the flop for a semi-bluff which if he was a regular poker player would prob not call for a maybe flush. Plus if you put him on a flush draw then you need to hit him hard on the turn to make sure he doesnt have odds to call for that river card. When I first read your post it sounded like he obviously had two pair or maybe even less. It turned out he had two pair but remember the general poker player doesnt know cards that well and will call with pretty much anything. Make sure you are using your notes and keep tabs on players so when these so-so decisions come up you can look back on them and make your best educated guess. Also, not specifically in this case, just because you dont have a hand doesnt mean you cant make your opponent think you have a monster. This guy was obviously a not a very experienced player and you where thinking about giving him too much credit, very nice call!!

I checked the turn because I thought he might have called my flop bet with something other than a draw, maybe a weak top pair. I'd seen him do that & call people all the way down, only to beat their middle pair/good kicker, or lose to their top pair/good kicker. I figured if he had what I thought, no bet would chase him out except a really big one, and I don't like semi-bluffing like that unless I feel there's a 99% chance he'll fold. So I checked it through to take a free card, and hit my draw - just in a way that made me nervous. Particularly when he sprung the big bet on me.