Limit Holdem #1, Part 3

Ok in part one we were dealt 10-J spades on the button and raised and then called the BB reraise. The flop gave us a flush draw and backdoor straight draw with 2 overs and we raised the BB's bet. In part 3 the turn missed us and the BB checked and so did we.

Now for part 3. In this scenerio somehow magically the buttom moved and we are now first to act. The Qs hits on the river and we have made our flush. We are first to act, do we bet or check hoping to check/raise?

I like a bet here, I hate slow playing on the river. I dont see this guy bluffing at us with this river.

You have to bet it out here.

A smart player will check if you check. He bets here and there are two things that will happen to him. You get to reraise your flush and now he is in for another big bet or you fold because you don't have anything. He will either lose 2 more bets (to a flush) or win the pot as is, so why bet?

You have to bet here. You bet and hope he has enough to make the call. The odds of him reraising are slim unless he has 2 pair or he also hit a flush.

Well, since YOU checked the turn, I don't know what you plan to do. You're not getting paid off by anyone who plays limit regularly.

I bet the turn, so I'll bet here again and take in the pot with my flush, and that pot should be 1 bb bigger than yours.

Except that in this scenerios with one card to come you are going to miss the flush more than make it. So while I may only pick up one BB when I hit, you lose at least one if not 2 BB when you lose which you are going to do more than win with one card to come.

Play the hand 10 times. You bet the turn everytime and villan calls. When you hit you bet the river also and get called. (assume that villan doesn't have a higher flush draw)

So you hit one in 5 times.

The 2 times you hit you get +2 big bets
The 8 times you miss you are -1 big bet

The 2 times I hit I'm +1 big bet
The 8 times I lose I'm -0 big bets

So over 10 hands you are -4 big bets and I am +2 big bets.

Ok so this was an easy one. The best thing to do here is bet. The 3rd spade hitting the board is a scare card so If you check villan will happily check behind even with an over pair. If you bet it would be incorrect given the pot odds for him to fold so most likely he will make a crying call with his over pair and tell himself he knew it when you show your flush.

A lot of players do check here trying to get a check raise which doesn't work often enough to make up for all the bets you lose when villan checks behind.

Again, this is one of the top 10 mistakes made by small stakes limit holdem players.

Note that by reraising the flop we made villan make a mistake when he didn't bet the turn giving you a free card. Like all poker you come out ahead by making fewer mistakes than your opponents.