im having trouble playing rivers in big pots

I have JJ, like 4 people limp, i raise HJ, its 7 ways

flop 385 rainbow, i bet and everyone calls

turn 9 puts up a FD, i bet and everyone but one person calls

river Ax, the middle aged guy next to me who has done nothing aggressive of note in a few hours suddenly donks?

is this a random stab enough?

I would assume there is a near zero chance that JJ is good here and just fold.

You’re getting 17.5:1 to make this call, go ahead and pay him off in this monster pot. And search this website for “fur coat dilemma”

At least where I play, there are a few saavy enough players out there who will donk a bluff bet when a "scare" card hits otr. he/she is hoping you'll fold 1010-KK. I'd puke call figuring we'll be good a small % of the time to be +ev long term.

I’m not good enough to fold here.

Call. If you’re beat it’s a small mistake costing you one bet. If you’re not beat and you fold it costs you a lot of bets.


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Call…shrug…move on to next hand.

Too many players behind ?

Ya, that too... there are 4 other players to beat. But I mostly just don't think a guy who has been quiet for hours is suddenly going to bluff into 5 other players.

Thx for clarifying.
I just don’t know if we were last to act and everyone folded in between , I would be able To fold even tho I agree with you .

General rule I use for limit poker is that if I go past the flop, I’m seeing a showdown unless I am almost certain that I’m beat. Generally this would mean I have a flush or straight draw that missed and I’ve got total air. You don’t have total air here. You probably are beat, but you only have to be good a very small percentage of the time to call profitably. Just donate the bb and make the old guy show you his ace.

BTW it’s very possible you were beat before the ace hit. I wouldn’t be folding, but after the PF and flop action you described, I might consider a turn check. By the time you hit the turn, you’re giving pot odds foe all kinds of slop hands to continue. Even if your JJ was good ott, you aren’t going to get many folds with your turn bet (see my general rule above). I typically treat all my hands in limit as draws. You just simply aren’t going to win many pots without showdown at a limit table, and you aren’t going to win many with unimproved hands.

Uh checking the turn here would be terribad. It’s not for protection it’s for value.

Obviously correct. Even if somehow that stoic guy is bluffing, do you really think that no one else has an ace? What else were they calling with preflop and to continue? Many people peel the flop and turn with Ace high but not with Queen high or whatever other crap that has no draws.

Also, of course you bet the turn.

It's buried deep in the archives. Here it is, in an easy-to-find form:

http://www.fekali.com/pwf/miscellanea/furcoat.html

That is just awesome.

This is nothing like the fur coat dilemma. Thinking that is misunderstanding several poker concepts.

You don't have the second nuts. You have four players behind you who might have sucked out even if the first guy didn't. Your hand might have been beat since the flop. You might be coming in fourth place. Etc.

Even if you call 99% of the time on the river, this should be part of the 1% you fold.

You are getting 17.5 to 1 so I think this may very well count as the fur coat. I don’t hate a call here at that price. It depends how it affects you emotionally. I’d probably have a good enough read to know what to do but if not, I think not knowing in this side pot is Wirth it to just chuck it on it.

17.5 to one against a parlay that player A doesn't have you beat * player B doesn't have you beat * player C doesn't have you beat * player D doesn't have you beat * player E doesn't have you beat. Do even just the rough math for all those probabilities. Then remember that in this case they aren't even independent, but correlated in a way that is bad for you: if player A doesn't have you beat, that makes it more likely that another player does, because there are fewer places for the available Aces to be.

I wouldn't even call in this spot if I had seen the bettor's hand and knew he was bluffing.