A♦5♦ CO vs BB, river on K♠ T♥ 7♠ 6♣ 2♠, 100 bb
The spot
- You: CO
- Opponent: BB
- Your hand: A♦5♦
- Board: K♠ T♥ 7♠ 6♣ 2♠
- Effective stack: 100 bb
- Pot: 23.5 bb
Population tendencies shape exploit windows in this high-EV branch.
Choose the strongest exploit-aware baseline.
See the answer
Best play: Check
Why
River, board K‑T‑7‑6‑2 with three spades but hero holds no spade, so A‑5 of diamonds is just ace-high: no pair, no straight, no flush. Against the BB's capped range this beats only missed draws and loses to every pair, so a 40% 'thin value' bet gets called only by better and folds out only worse. With three spades out hero also lacks a meaningful bluff blocker, so the correct play is to check and try to win at showdown.
Key idea
Count suits on every river. Three spades you can't use plus no pair means ace-high, which has showdown value against bluffs but zero value-betting merit.
Common mistake
Mistaking ace-high for a value hand and betting it, or even bluffing without a blocker, when checking captures the bluffs it already beats.