[...] Big Slick Faces River Shove – Complete Poker Rules [...]

My instinct suggests to me that he doesn’t have the flush and is either trying to represent that he does or he’s hit his set and feels you haven’t hit a flush. I’m totally ok with Hero smooth calling the flop too but I’m not a big fan of AK, so I’d probably do the same. If I were hero, I’d also slow play a set to see if others caught even a little piece of anything that will get me paid.

I suspect hero is losing regardless. Call to confirm. Take your notes on the guy and move on.

Final guess on a hand 88.

I just don’t see the villain chasing a flush. I am thinking 2 pair or even a straight.

Here is my analysis

Preflop: No complaints

Flop: Raise BB’s flop bet to about $1 or $1.20 as a C-Bet. Fold to a re-rase. Or fold altogether, I don’t know if I like the call. Hero already showed aggression PF, now you are min bet into on the flop.

Turn: I like Hero’s bet, maybe even make it pot sized. Original minbetter folded. Is SB now on the backdoor flush draw? Slowplaying, overplaying?

River: Backdoor flush gets there. If Hero has any reads on this guy as being a tight postflop player, then you can probably ditch TPTK. But he could be using his short stack to his advantage here. I probably make a crying call if I perceive him as donkish.

Here is some analysis using the free software pokerstove (I hope the formatting stays).

I plugged in a PF calling range of 20% for villain:

194 games 0.005 secs 38,800 games/sec

Board: 4s 7d 8h Ks 2s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 85.567% 84.02% 01.55% 163 3.00 { AhKc }
Hand 1: 14.433% 12.89% 01.55% 25 3.00 { 66+, A4s+, K8s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, A9o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo }

It has Hero at a 85.5% favorite against this range. Now, that doesn’t mean much since he is holding 2 specific cards and not a range! But I probably call here. My rule is to not go broke on one pair hands. Big hands for big pots, small hand for small pots. But in this case, I probably call.

80 percent of the time when a player makes this type of bet INTO a pre-flop raiser, he’s just trying to feel the raiser out.

when you re-raise in this situation, 9 times out of 10, the guy who way underbet the pot, folds.

Having said all that the hero should probably call…it’s less than a pot sized bet, and he’s invested some already… Often the low limit players will bluff a scary river. I still put the villain on a flush (maybe a set), but I personally would call; he has another 5 bux if he loses. As BBC said, the mistake was on the flop…if you’re going to call with AK after u missed the flop, you’re screwing yourself. Raise or fold. Because of the smooth call the hero has no information as to the villains hand. Also, with 2 spades on board at the turn, if the hero thinks he’s ahead he should force the other guy there…put in over half his stack and he has to raise all in or fold, a call by villain would then be dumb because he has no fold equity on the river if a scare card comes. By the way…if I’m the villain and i did flop the straight, no way I’m just smooth calling 1 dollar on the turn…specially in low limit. I say he was drawing.

By just calling the flop, I’m not getting any information and I’m giving too much away about my hand. At this point everyone knows I’m sitting on AK or AQ.

On the turn, the K is a scare card. The BB folds, which is what I would have expected but the SB smooth calling behind me AGAIN would set off all kinds of warning bells.

When the 2S comes on the river and SB pushes all in, it should confirm our suspicion that he flopped the straight. He is not scared of the flush because he has put us on AK all the way. SB has to lead off with a bet because he doesn’t want to take the chance that we’ll check it down after the third spade hits.

Sorry Hero. Unlikely you’ll lay it down at this point.