I'm HU with villain, no reads.

He limps and I check BB with 922QT

flop K99, pot 6 ($1 antes)

i bet 4, he calls

turn 2, pot 14. turn does bring a club draw.

i bet 10, he calls

river offsuit A

K992A

i check and he bets 20-ish.

i mean what am i beating besides a bluff from QTJx? esp, considering i have two deuces? i.e. his value range literally always beats me unless he's willing to bet Q9 OTR. And his hand does look like a 9x that was unwilling to raise flop/turn, so any 9 in that category either has a K or A, quite frequently.

Really thought this was a fold. And I wonder if the bigger mistake is actually me not value-betting river to get value from trips that never filled up, as at least I can get value from those then fold to a river raise.

Thoughts? Thanks

Good analysis. Check-folding is certainly legit against many players.

Easy fold. You should never be good here

thanks, guys. the more i played with this player, the more i realized this was even more of a fold OTR.

i maybe think i need to bet/fold to be optimal here. maybe a half pot bet or something

Why on earth would you need to do that?

well, i was thinking i could still accrue value from bare trips and the occasional AK that never believed me. and folding might seem exploitable but i also think this is never a bluff or a someone making a play from most people in 5 card.

optimal might be the wrong word i was looking for. just thinking that if i were going to check/call, i'd be better off betting out anyway and folding to a raise.

I think betting is just too thin on this runout.

Edit: on any other river besides A I think 92 should be bet for value.

calling here b/c you're probably good and also for info. i need reason to believe villain isnt raising A2 HU on the button. I like your thought of b/f too

We don't care if he has A2 though. A9 is the hand that fills up on the river.

he also didn't raise pre, he limped. so there's no reason to assign him that narrow a range.

even if he did raise pre, you can't just auto assign a guy A2 in a HU/bvb hand.

furthermore, when a guy calls, esp in a limped pot, and is willing to take 2 barrels to the river, his range narrows even more than usual. there's no pot to bluff for.

plus it's 5 card. so ya i'm way, way, way more willing to assign a 9 here. i still don't think i have a fully reasoned out idea of how 5 card affects player ranges/combinations, but i do a lot less discounting than usual, because people will play their normal 4 card connected hands with the 5th being a total dangler, if need be. like if i had aa23ds and 3-bet pre, the 5th card is irrelevant to me, and i tend not to look at a board like this and go "oh because they 3b or 4b pre, they can't really have a 9 because it's not connected to A2. (in case anyone feels like they have comments on this point).

u didnt say what positioned he limped from... the earlier the position the less chance i think he has a 9. if he had A9 the whole time why didnt he raise at all? i would have bet fold.