Say you're in 1st position, you make your lock low with no redraw on 4th. Should you just check into a few opponents? I feel like there is little upside to betting

a few opponents? Limit yes...PL, maybe/probably. Counterfit protection and board texture matter.

fixed limit

generally yes, but it depends on who you are playing against and their action up to this point.

if you are able to put people on hands accurately and have a strong feeling your opponents will be betting and raising you might make more money by checking and calling all the bets. if the person who will bet is to your immediate left, you should check-raise if it's gone bet and one call or more. that way you are typically carving up a lot of dead money between you and the bettor.

that being said, you should not have got to this situation if you had naked nut low draw when you suspected strongly your opponents had the same hand plus better for high between them.

in PL/NL games, you can cost yourself a lot by playing low only hands too strongly and having two way hands is very important, and its better to bet one way hands when in position so you know other people in the hand don't have anything because they checked to you.

thanks. yeah i'm talking limit sorry

fmp

i gotta start checking my posts before i send.. jeez

There's absolutely upsides to betting(and I disagree with those who stated otherwise).

One of the upsides to betting is that you might get those few opponents to fold.

Another upside is you'll be building up the pot, and, if you've got the only nut low than naturally the half you get will be that much bigger.

Another upside to betting is, if you only bet with your high hands and rarely bet with your nut lows, then you become way too easy to read.

The only time where I'm looking to keep the pot small is when I have a very good read that someone else shares the same low, the pot is 3 handed, and when my opponents are playing aggressively(which they always are). But, in really passive games you should definitely be taking control whenever you have a nut hand because passive players will always leave bets on the table, and, well that sucks.

Say you flop the nut low(no protection/no redraw) and you check. And everyone checks around. What do you do on the turn? Are you still checking this? Are you waiting until a safe card lands on the river? Just trying to see if you're giving up value, or, perhaps, maybe you're electing to check because you're confident that somebody else will bet...?

If it's an aggressive game I might check and let someone else bet. Maybe I'm snakebit since I've been running so bad lately and always get counterfeited.

So basically my plan is predicated on someone else betting. If it's a game where flops are getting checked around, I'd definitely bet. I haven't played many games like that though.

I've noticed it can be very deceptive to check call the turn and then bet the river. If the river makes an obvious high hand like a flush you are more likely to push out other high hands than betting when the low hand is made on the turn. Is this a good play?

yes

avoid this by playing less of the weaker a2/a3 hands (a2j9 no suits for example, early/mid position, or raise/reraise in front of you), that way you have c-f protection.

not every a2/a3 is playable!

Really. That actually makes some sense empirically, but the book disagrees

edited it a bit to give you a better idea of what i mean

makes sense

+1 Nice post.

The preflop and flop action was not mentioned. That would impact my decision to bed out on 4th st. Also you did not mention if you made any kind of high hand (top pair, middle pair, gut shot, etc). Size of pot also impacts this decision. Depending on the action, I strongly consider betting with lock low and only middle pair. Your bet may force a bottom set or two pair if they can only play for half the pot. High only hands will not fold if the pot is big, but I still consider the bet.

I only bet here if i plan on firing the river also to give myself a shot at the whole pot. Because of position I usually check here for a few reasons.
1. If I only have a low and no draw at a high I dont want to chase players out of the pot and get quartered at the end.
2. This looks like you're betting a low so someone with the second or third nut low might fold rather than call the original aggressors bet.
3. Obviously people have already said this but you could just get counterfeited on the river.

Now this being said if there was no action on the flop i would probably feel fine betting this.

The problem with checking is you fail to get more money in the pot and increase your "half" when most likely you would have got called in 3+ spots (most hands are multiway) had you bet.

I hate missing a bet!!!

You're obv a big favourite to not get counterfeited though. Part of the reason for a bet is it's a favourable equity situation

I think we'd all miss a lot of bets if we chose to not bet because the river might bring a card to beat us

You are probably right but i think we really need to know more about previous action to make a choice

My betting here depends on several factors, including the following:

1) What two cards make the nut low? If it's A-2, maybe A-3, I might not bet. I'm more likely to bet if it's 2-3, 2-4, or 3-4. Not because of the potential straight draw with those last 2 card combinations, but because it's more unlikely that anyone will have that nut low. There are more A-2-x-x combinations in my opponents hands than 3-4-x-x for example.

2) Who is the aggressor (if any) in this hand. If there is an opponent that you are confident will bet behind you, and other opponents will call their bet but would not likely call your bet and his raise, then I check. I raise when it gets back to me. I likely get two or more bets from each of them (assuming aggressor just calls, and they now feel priced in) rather than getting them both to fold. If the aggressor re-raises, it's possible they give up, but at least we got them out and took a bet from each of them. If they stay in, we're inflating our half of the pot so much more. Like I said, this is dependent on knowing that the aggressor is very likely to bet here.

3) Regardless of what happens in #2, and what hits the river, I am betting on 5th. My check raise looks strong (assuming we got that in). The aggressor might fold a marginal high here that has us beat. The river might counterfeit us but I still lead out either for value (if everyone else has high) or to get those marginal highs to fold. If I get raised, the pot is so big I'll likely *sigh* call.

4) If there is no aggressor and my low is uncounterfeitable I will likely just lead out both on 4th and 5th, especially with something of a high hand or draw.