Donk bets. On the flop, crap hand. On the river, monster.

[mcatdog]

This is a general rule when you're playing against a mediocre player. I need to do a better job of remembering it.

If you raise preflop and a guy calls from the blinds, and bets into you on the flop, he's usually thinking, "I hope this guy missed the flop and goes away." If you raise them, they usually fold.

If you bet the turn and a guy calls you out of position, and then leads into you on the river when a scare card hits, he's usually thinking "This guy will probably check behind because of the scare card, so I'll make a value bet." Either the scare card made his hand, or else he has another good made hand and thinks the scare card didn't help you.

Example: This hand from a 50+5 where I made a completely retarded call on the river for the rest of my chips, especially since if I'd folded, I would've still been even in chips with a very horrible UTG player who I probably could've outlasted. SB in this hand liked to be tricky, but was way too obvious about it and I managed to get away from JJ several hands earlier when he limp-reraised me and showed me AA when I folded. I managed to make an amazing $16 today but I obviously wasn't playing my A game if I made such a fucking stupid call as this one.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (4 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

UTG (t1525)
Button (t4210)
SB (t5565)
Hero (t2200)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, 8.
UTG calls t200, 1 fold, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (t600) 9, J, 5 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks.

Turn: (t600) T (3 players)
SB bets t200, Hero raises to t800, UTG folds, SB calls t600.

River: (t2200) 9 (2 players)
SB bets t1200, Hero calls t1200 (All-in)

Final Pot: t4600

By the way the reason I checked the flop was that UTG had been betting almost every time it was checked to him and I wanted him to bet, and see how the SB reacted. If he bet and the SB folded I was going to check-raise all-in.

[Scuba Chuck]

Come on man. Bet the flop here. What's your motivation to check? If UTG bets into this pot, with a hand like KQ, and you c/r him allin because you think he's FOS, he's pot committed. If you bet 300 here, and utg folds and SB plays back at you, let him have it.

Because you really don't want to play the SB here, the way you played it, I might call the turn bet (because I want to keep the pot small), but I definately fold on the river.

[mcatdog]

I'm not going to defend my turn and river play because it was terrible, but why would I want to bet the flop against a guy who'd been limping like 50% of his hands and making a small bet on just about every flop. KQ has 10 outs against me, this guy most likely has way fewer outs than that. Checking the flop allows me to
1) Possibly get all-in against the short stack when I have his range crushed, or else pick up some extra chips from him if he bets and folds to my check-raise.
2) Wait and see what the SB does before I commit any chips, like you say I don't want to get involved with him.

And if it checks around and the turn is some horrible card like an ace, who cares, I can just fold.