I played a hand in a live tournament recently and while I do think I ended up I probably lost the minimum possible I am not sure and am not sure particularly about my turn play. (sorry if this is in the wrong place...)

I raise in EP with KsQs, folded to BB who calls. I have not been at the table long but he seemed to play tight and straightforwardly. We both had stacks of around 250BB.

Flop is K-J-9r. He checks, I check behind. Turn is an offsuit 7, he bets 1/3 pot, I just call. River is a 2. He leads out 1.3 x pot and I think and fold.

I checked the flop because I didn't want to play a big pot with my 1 pair on this board, or get check-raised off it. I thought the flop hits his range quite hard and that if he did have a draw it could only be a gutshot, so it would be ok to see the turn. I think this is ok but would be happy to hear otherwise.

Immediately after I folded to his river bet I thought I should have raised his turn bet, that way I could be completely confident in folding if he led out strong on the river. However thinking about it more I am not sure if this is right - this is quite a low level ($100) tournament so he would be unlikely to ever bet the river like he did just as a bluff (I was sure I was beat when he bet the river as big as he did). So therefore maybe just calling the turn is ok if I could be confident in reading his river bet. Against a more aggressive player I should probably raise his small turn bet but here I think maybe my turn play was fine.

Any advice would be appreciated

You are saying that you didnt bet the flop because you didnt want to play a big pot. Then you are saying that you have thought about raising the turn bet was a better way.

If you dont bet the flop you should call the turn, raising is an error as played IMO.

You cant say, i want to control the pot size checking the flop but i will raise the turn bet

Oh I suppose my line of thinking does seem weird - it was my initial thought just after the hand that I should have raised the turn, to stop him bluffing the river. I obviously played the hand very passively and thought he could have took advantage of this, but then after more thought didn't think he was capable of bluffing the river the way he did, so therefore my turn call was ok. I think this was ok as played against this opponent, but this kind of play could leave me open to bluffs from more aggressive/capable players, so really that's my issue - how should it be played against different types of opponent?

If you're going to raise with KQ and you flop top pair on a fairly wet board you have to bet the flop for value, otherwise just fold preflop. And if you decide to slowplay it and check the flop, call the turn, you have to call a blank on the river unless you pickup some kind of really strong read on him. You can't be that scared of a flop and turn bet after you turned complete control of the bet over to him.

Checking the flop was a huge mistake, unless you did so with intention of concealing the strength of your hand while also mixing up C-bets. The only way I check that flop is if I am planning on check/raising the turn.

Ok, so you just call 4th street, which I don't agree with but still not a bad call....as long as you were preparing to gouge him on the river. But you folded. What did you think his range was? At that point I would put him on a weaker King or maybe a hand like J 10 or QJ. If he had Q 10 and flopped the nuts, then you're crushed, but given the action to that point it was worth it for you to at least call the river bet.

But all this confusion could have been cleared up a little had you bet that flop or at least raise his bet on the turn. You didn't give yourself a good chance to dig for information. You raised pre flop but then you turned weak and allowed your opponent to control the hand from that point on. At that point he probably just put you on a hand like 66 and figured his Jack was good.

If you're going to be aggressive pre flop, then you have to maintain that control throughout the entire hand...even if it's a hand that you end up folding.

Why? You often make a lot more money by giving up the betting lead to a chronic bluffer.

Thanks for the comments. I obviously did play it badly - by basically giving up on the hand when I was quite strong. I would normally have bet the flop but I think I just got a bit too clever by going for pot control by checking (because I couldn't see me getting three streets of value from him on this board), and then made it worse being too weak after - on both the turn & river. I do have a tendency to fear the worst sometimes and although I never see (at this level) players overbetting the pot on the river as a bluff, that clearly wasn't a good enough reason to fold.

I let him take it off me basically.

Bet flop for sure this deep. Lots of value to be had from all sorts of ****.
Turn I don't agree with raising at all. Doesn't make sense after we check flop.
Would call anything < pot on the river without thinking too much about it. Really comes down to 'feel' when he overbets in a live game.

Suffice it to say I wouldn't have played the hand as you did.

Regardless, due to your passive line there is no way villain puts you on your hand here, and no reason why you should feel he has a bigger hand than yours. Think you could have justified your post-flop passiveness by calling down his big river bluff and showing your capability to be deceptive. What ended up happening was you proved yourself as weak-passive and capable of getting pushed off of strong hands. Moreover, with huge starting stacks like this you could easily absorb the loss in chips and gain valuable information...could make the case that the info would be as valuable as the chips you lost.

You are correct with your statement; however, said statement does not apply to this situation. OP described his villain as a straightforward player, not a crazy chronic bluffer. Each situation and opponent should be adjusted to. So based on the information given in this specific hand, our Hero made a huge mistake by not taking control of the hand. Against a player such as he described he should have kept betting...UNLESS he was inducing a bluff.

Now, against a "chronic bluffer", a good player will still maintain control over the hand....however, that control is in a different form. Rather than take control by betting out, the hero can take control of a chronic bluffer by letting the bluffer hang himself with stupid bets.

I stand by my statement: You should always have control of every pot you're in...no matter what. Sometimes having that "control" doesn't mean just betting and raising, though. Think about it.

One of my favorite poker players/ authors is Andrew Brokos, who goes by "foucalt". Brokos is a brilliant writer as well as an exceptionally deep thinker when it comes to poker. I am an avid reader of his blog and I can tell you with direct honesty that reading his blogs, strategy tips and articles has improved my game immensely. One of his articles that stuck out to me as I was reading your above comment is "What are you so afraid of?" Here is the link: http://www.thinkingpoker.net/article...you-afraid-of/

I would encourage you to read that article and any others by him. If you are truly attempting to improve your game then I think Andrew Brokos is without a doubt one person that you could learn a lot from.

I've never thought about it, thanks. Now I will. If by "having control" of the hand, you mean doing one of checking or betting or folding, I don't know what "having control" actually even means. If you just mean that you should play well, and that you should think about each decision and make whichever decision will win you the most money, then yes, we agree.

EXACTLY And that is precisely what I meant. When I am in a hand, no matter how many opponents are in that hand with me, I always put it in my mind that this is MY HAND. I am in control at all times. I will pay attention to all action, all body language and all words. I will make the BEST decisions...whether that means checking, raising, shoving or folding. I control my actions, therefore I control the hand. It's mine to win or lose. If I lose the hand, then it's my fault. If I win, then it's my victory. "control" does not just mean to bet and raise.