DECISION POINT: In a Cash Game, three players limp into the pot and you raise from the Button with J♠J♥, getting two callers. The Flop is A♣A♦8♠. It is checked to you and you bet, getting one caller. The Turn is the T♦. It is checked to you and you check behind. The River is the Q♠. Your opponent checks. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We should continuation bet much smaller than this on this particular board texture.

Rather than betting $50 into a pot of $68 on the flop, a c-bet of $20 or $25 is enough given the very dry AAx texture. With this particular texture, both equity denial and value can be accomplished with a much smaller c-bet size.

After our c-bet gets called, checking behind on the turn is standard, as is checking back on the river. Our hand has some showdown value against worse pairs, but we are unlikely to get any better hands to fold or worse hands to call.

Hands like QQ and KK aren’t really a part of Villain’s range due to preflop play. Most opponents won’t limp-call preflop with those hands. They also won’t fold Ax hands to a river bet, so turning our JJ into a bluff won’t work very often. Essentially all better hands than ours will call.

On the value betting side, most opponents will simply fold something like 99 after we bet the river, so we won't get called by any worse hands. Because both value betting and bluffing on the river won’t be profitable, we should simply check and showdown our hand.

Checking behind is the best play.