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Sometimes when youre playing limit hold em, there are going to be more than oneoption postflop which will all appear similarly good. All the time, I have friends ask

me hey Schneids, which is the best play here and Ill respond call or raise, itdoesnt matter, just mix it up or something along those lines. That said, Im now

going to show a few situations in which there might be one factor that will sway thebest choice to one direction or another.

More than one play:

I played the following hand in a $1000/2000 game on Full Tilt. 5-handed, foldedaround to me in the SB and I raised with T8o. The BB, Hoss TBF, called. Its tough to

really quantify what his calling range here is, though its extremely large and he will

play virtually any two; however, its also still possible he can show up with a bighand that got slow played preflop. In any case, Hoss is a very good player and

balances postflop well, though in my opinion tends to gravitate towards playingmathematically optimal (against an estimated hand range) rather than focus on

balancing.

The flop came J86 with two diamonds. I bet, and Hoss called. The turn was a Jack. Ibet, and Hoss again called. By this point in the hand reading, it becomes most likelythat Hoss has a 6, a small pocket pair, or ace high. The river was a 7. What should I

do on the river?

Against Hoss, and against most good players, your river considerations are going

to be very different than against a bad player. Most good players are prettyaggressive, which means that:

1. If they had a hand like T9, theyd have almost always raised on the flop, orelse on the turn when the board pairs and a lot of showdownable-type hands

no longer showdown if raised2. They value bet often.

To keep the example more objective, Im going to remove Hoss as the opposition(because lots of people are going to have lots of opinions of his play, and some are

going to be wrong in many ways or think they know his style and judge it differentlythan they should), and instead go off what I called a typical good player.

Against a good player, either of bet-call, or checkraise are both good plays andshould almost always be your two river options. Checkraise might actually be the

best, because you can narrow their hand range enough based on preflop/flop/turn toknow that youre almost always holding the best hand on this river, and because

they valuebet relentlessly, and most good players often payoff even when its cleartheyre likely beat (but the pot is big, so they know they have to call anyway). The

ten kicker plays, and if they had an 8 with a bigger kicker its way too probabletheyd have raised on the flop or turn since this board is super draw-heavy, and they

play good, so thats what they do because its the best play.

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Against a bad player, and especially bad-passive players, checking isnt nearly sogood, because:

1. Its more likely they check behind with a hand such as 97.

2. Its more likely they have T9 because they arent as likely to have raised onthe flop or turn.

3. Its more likely they slowplayed trip jacks, because they dont play good and

didnt raise to charge draws.

Betting the river is far and away the best play against a bad player, because thats

the best way to ensure that 1 bet and not more than 2 bets ever go in on this riverwhile still seeing a showdown. Bad players call with tons of hands, so betting gives

them the chance to make a bad call, and also gets more value against hands that

will call a bet but not bet themselves, and finally, because its more likely the badplayer is to show up with a hand better than T8 on this board than the good playerwill. Also, lets say if you were to check this river, it is much better to just call the

bet versus the bad player than it is versus the good player. The bad player is moreapt to show up with K8 or something else that beats you here than the good player,

and they will usually need more of a hand to bet this river than the good player (and

likewise if they have a no pair flush draw theyre likely going to fold to the checkraise anyway)

As the hand actually played out, I checked, and Hoss checked behind with 33. He

played his hand well, though I am confident that the way I played the hand(checking with the intent of check raising) is the best way to play the hand versus a

good player in the long run (though I will acknowledge it is a legitimate argument if

someone contends that betting is just as good because of the added factor of a goodplayer paying off a bet with ace high, but not betting ace high themselves).