Game: 1/2 NLHE
Venue: Home Game
Effective Stack: $325

It's late in the session, so we're six handed. Hero is on the button with Ah 3s

Folded to Hero, and I make it $12 (standard open for the game is $12 in unopened pots) SB folds, and BB calls.

Flop comes: Ad Ac 5d

BB leads for $15
Hero calls

Turn comes: 4c

BB leads for $40
Hero calls

River comes: 5h

BB leads for $75
Hero calls

BB shows 5c6d

Hero shows A3 to win.

The villain said that he can't believe that I didn't raise him. I was literally confused by how the hand played out. A leak of mine playing live is that I can't tell the difference between a bluff and a bad player misplaying a value hand. When he lead the flop, normally in the live player pools that I play in, that means either top pair weak kicker, or a set. This was the first spot where he didn't have either of those. Once he fires the flop, I assume that he either has a set of fives, or an Ace with a kicker that is likely better than mine. By the time we get to the river, I don't even consider raising because I assume that we are chopping. When he shows a five, I am in disbelief. I was thinking to myself "what type of fish plays a five like that". Anyway, should I have raised the river in that spot? I'm on the fence about it because more times than not we are chopping and the other times, the guy spiked quads. Thoughts?

"what type of fish plays a five like that"

This pretty much sums it up so don't worry about what he said. If you raise the river, is he going to call you? Most players, even bad ones, understand how common an Ace is in an opponents hand. What does he think you can raise the river that he is ahead of - KK? KK-JJ? KK-66? Or in other words, how fishy is he? If you play with him often it is worth trying to figure this out as maybe you find that raise on the river next time.

For flop and turn, I am never raising basically because we are out kicked here so often I just see no value in a raise. In my player pools almost no one will continue on this flop without an ace. I think you played the hand well and won the max with your weak ace.

One thing I am not considering here is you are 6 handed but still, I just see no value in a raise. NH

Thanks for the reply, I definitely appreciate it. Yeah, it was the strangest hand that I've played in a while. I had just been playing micro stakes for the past few months to improve, so his line just confused me. I wasn't sure if I missed value by not raising, but I just couldn't imagine anything other than an ace taking that line.

I think there's some sense in villain's play. You raised pre, so he probably assumes that if you have an ace, you have a good kicker and would likely raise at some point. On the flop, maybe he was mostly trying to protect his equity against hands like KQ while trying to bluff out pocket pairs above his 5. On turn, I guess it's mostly a bluff against pocket pairs assuming you'd put a raise in with a big ace. River bet is a bit strange. It's too hard for you to call with pocket pairs yet again, so he's only getting worse to fold and better to call/raise.

Trying to figure out the math here...

Villain will show up with 55 less than 1% of the time here IMO (other than just the fact that there's only 1 combo of pocket fives, leading out on all three streets for the amounts he did would be very strange for quads). In that case, you lose 75 if you don't raise, but 265 if you do raise (assuming you call an AI) - net difference of -$190.

So you need to win on average like $1.90 the other 99% to make up for the $190 you're losing that 1% of the time.

If you min-raise and you're ahead and he calls only 3% of the time, that will be enough to bring you into +EV territory. If he only has quads 0.1% of the time, then you only need to get a call on a raise and be good 0.3% of the time, etc...

Tough to have any confidence about EV in spots that require knowledge of such small frequencies.

Would make a small raise and expected to get heroed sometimes, esp when diamonds bust. He literally never has 55 here.

Thanks so much for the replies above. I definitely appreciate it. I think that it may have been too nitty for me not to minraise. My main hesitation was not wanting to have to call a shove just to chop if he reraises.