Betting on the river; Position matters.

The general principle applies to both limit and no-limit, but is more easily applicable to limit hold 'em. For the sake of simplicity, I've used a LHE example.

You're on the river with AdKh, on a KcQh9h5h2h board. The only other opponent is a loose/aggressive player who has been raising and capping preflop and on the flop, and raised you on the turn.

You have the second nuts.

How important is your position in determining what you should do on the river?

I think position would be much more an issue in NL, so I guess I'd have to say that in LHE position isn't much of an issue for me on this hand now that we've gotten to the river and I have the 2nd nuts.

Out of position in LHE I most likely check-call on the river - there is no way in hell I fold the 2nd nuts on the river for one bet.

Out of postion in NL I think I still have to check-call the river given your profile of my opponent - he's capable of making those plays with suited connectors much lower than my K right?

Given the action you described I'm putting him in the range of a set of Q's or 9's, it's situational of course and I'd need to get a read when the 4th heart comes on the river in NL, but in limit it's pretty simple - there is no way to fold with the 2nd nuts here for one bet.

if I'm in postion in LHE I might raise if he bets out, and have to make a call. Either way, in LHE I don't mind having to call the extra bet if he pops me back, there is just too much money in the pot at that point.

Throwing this hand away, in or out of position, would be a huge mistake. We have a LAG that may not even be holding a heart, muchless the Ah. With a large pot mucking the hand is a huge leak in a game.

In LHE, with position I'm raising/calling. Out of position I'm betting out/calling. He could have any card in his hand.

In NLHE, I think if you let this board get to the river you've already made a mistake. Obviously stack depth could influence some situations, but this guy is very loose, get the money in before it hits the river. You're really worried about 4 hands: AA & KK--you should have a pretty good idea that he may be holding this preflop. He'll either get suspiciously weak pre, or go all in. Tough decisions either way, but he'll play it differently most likely. The tougher hands are TJ, or KQ. you hold a K, so being behind 2 pair is posible, but you still have outs. TJ, he's already straightened up, so you have a lot of ground to cover. Still, against this opponent, your hand is still huge, and you're either winning or losing a big pot here--tough to get away from that.

IMO, NL is about greatly trying to make your opponent make mistakes (same as limit really, but any particular pot can be for all the marbles). If he draws out on you, well, then you've still had math on your side and the money will eventually follow. With your reads on this opponent, get the money in there.

PokerToad said:

Out of position in LHE I most likely check-call on the river - there is no way in hell I fold the 2nd nuts on the river for one bet.

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Not seeing a showdown is definitely awful. However, checking and calling is almost certainly not the way to go. Betting and calling a raise is better. Much, much better.

Out of position (in LHE), you only need to have the best hand more than 50% in order for bet/calling to be the best move if he will call with any worse hand. And we can be very certain that he isn't folding anything at this point.

However, in position this changes. If your opponent checks, he now has to have the ace of hearts only 34% of the time for you to be wrong to bet (since he will checkraise).

The problem with being out of position is that when you check he won't bet his whole range, just the really strong hands. His weakest hands, he's going to check behind and then you've lost a bet those times. In other words, you allow him to play the river perfectly. This is not good.

If you bet, he can only play perfectly if he has the ace of spades, which is going to be a minority of the times. Therefore, you're forcing him to make the mistake of calling (or better, raising without the ace of hearts) the majority of the time.

Specifically, it's the fact that it's 50% that's required to bet out, but it's actually 34% required to bet in position.

(However, and this is of course also an important perspective, if he has the ace of hearts he's somewhat unlikely to check the river when you're in position. So if he checks to you, his likelyhood of having the Ah goes down some and you are still probably correct to bet when checked to)