Whats your strategy for...

.....the river? for instance...your holding J10 suited....middle position....few callers before you preflop, you raise slightly, 1 caller behind you and the few previous callers call your raise as well....flop comes Q 10 5 rainbow...one person ahead of you folds, the other person calls, you call (or raise depending on type of players/table) and the person behind you calls....the turn comes J....guy ahead of you checks, you bet, guy behind you calls, guy in front of you folds....your now heads up for the river....river comes Ace....do you a) check and not take the risk that the guy behind you has ace/10 in his hand or ace/jack..or even KQ for the straight...or do you bet and take that risk? if you are unsure do you show aggressiveness or do you check to play it safe instead of putting in an extra bet or two?

In the same example, lets say you are in the position of the guy behind you with the same hand J10 suited....you have 2 pairs....not bad but still hands that could beat you....lets say the guy in front of you checks....do you check and play it safe (i.e in case he is check-raising or in case he calls and in fact, has the better hand) or do you bet and try to knock him out right there?

Basically to simplify, whats your strategy on the river? A good number of times, this is where the hand is won so what do you guys do?

Thanks

LP

Generally speaking, checking the river on marginal hands is the most prudant action. In the above example, there's just too much out there that can beat my 2 pair to get greedy.

In the first case, I check / call.
In the second case with position and a check in front of me, I also check.

Unless you're really good, in which case you call, call, bet big on the river. Negreanu is a specialist at this.

EDIT: You're talking about limit aren't you. In which case this won't work.

depending on my chip stack it would have to be a feeler bet about 2x the BB/check if not the larger stack

What was the point of raising slightly before the flop? The people who limped in before you have the correct odds to call and now you can't put them on any hand. You should have either just called or raised more. Raising a good amount will help you determine what type of hand your oppenent might have, or possibly win the pot right there.

As for what to do when the ace hit the river, you need to bet out. By checking you are showing weakness and giving your opponent a chance to bluff. You don't want to bet too much, in the case he did have a straight. You also don't want to bet too little because you are just asking for a reraise. You need to bet just enough to make your opponent think you have the straight. A 1/3 pot bet should be enough.

If you have the nuts after the turn and your first to act then think out what your opponent will be willing to call. Once you figure that out make a value bet from that price so your sure he will call. If your hand is medium power and your first to act you must check- call or check-raise. If you volentairly put chips into the pot your either going to get called by a better hand or raised by just as good of a hand or worse or finaly he will simply fold and you wont make money off of your hand. Try to rarley ever bet with medium strengh hands, if your planning to make money check raise.