kmid said
I think you’ve answered your own question in your analysis. The reasons to not bet the turn outweigh the reasons to do so. You don’t get calls from worse or folds from better. I see little merit in betting for protection, especially when our hand is behind fairly often anyway. It’s ok to fold the river and I don’t think we should aim to prevent having to do that by making a bad decision on the turn.

I’m curious about the open from mp with J6s.

Yeah, after revisiting the hand this morning I agree.

I tried to gauge the value of betting for protection- if we assume villain is calling preflop with 98, 87 and 65s there are actually 35 combos of straight draws in his range going into the turn. If i check the turn, i give them a free card which i’m not too concerned about because most of these combos are only gutshot 4-outers. But I am concerned that he’ll turn half of these 35 combos into a bluff on the river and this puts me in an awkward spot.

Despite this, those 18 combos of (expected) bluffs are still outweighed by villain’s value betting range (Js+) to the extent that i should fold the river to a half pot sized bet. 

I’m not opening Jc6c all the time from MP and I’m not entirely convinced it’s a good open but the following factors played a big part in my decision.

a) The structure of iPoker tournaments is conducive to stealing. Antes are generally higher than in other platforms and, in this spot, the preflop pot is 19,000 and i’m risking just 17,000 to scoop it.

b) The three players to my left up to and including the button are tight passive based on a sample of 50-150 hands (each) from my HUD. I don’t think they’ll get too out of line as their stacks are not ideal for 3bet bluffing. If one flats me, I think cbetting 1/3 pot is still positive equity on most flops.

c) The small blind is loose passive and i do expect him to flat me a decent amount of the time but i don’t mind this because, again, cbetting 1/3 pot is likely to be a positive equity play on most flops. He’s a fit/fold player and being in position reduces the risk of pot-bloating vs hands that have me out-kicked etc. If he calls and the big blind comes along, I still don’t mind because most players play honestly in this spot.

d) The big blind stats are fairly tight (14/9). Though he does have the stack size to 3bet me as a bluff, I don’t expect him to do this very often.

^The 35 combos of draw/air is derived from: 98 (16 combos), T9 (16 combos) and 65s (3 combos). I neglected to include T8s, 85s and 63s. 

After giving the hand some more thought, i reckon what you’ve said is spot on.

I believe this player would flat the flop with a gutshot (especially given my small bet size and the attractive implied odds for him given we’re both big stacks). I believe also, that if i check the turn he will attempt to bluff with at least half of these hands on a blank river (like you say, a 2). This leaves him with a bluffing range of about 18 combos at a (blank) river. When you throw in hands like Ace high floats turned into a bluff (which i don’t expect very often frankly) and small pps betting the river as a weird blocker- i think we might bump this bluffing range to 25 combos- probably just enough for me to call (with J6) on a blank river.   

Nervous Mike said
I like the play all the way until the river. I can’t fold here. First of all, the range from big blind is very wide, and people defend from big blind very wide in todays game. I am not sure what range you put him on when he is defending his big blind. But for the price to just over minbet I expect him to defend as wide as up to ~55% of hands

Your bet on the flop is very small, you bet 17460 into a pot of 45200, 38%. He got to call 17460 to win a pot of 17460+17460+45200=80120

So his price is 17460/80120 and he gets ~22% on the call. I think a big part of his flattingrange from bigblind floats a flop here. Gutshots, overcards, small pairs, A high. 

When the 7 on the turn comes and you check back you show weakness or that you already got a weakish hand you want to take to showdown but a hand that also can’t stand more heat. The 7 pairs the board and take away more 7s in his range. 

The 8 on the river is not a card I fold on, as you showed weakness in the hand I am pretty sure he can stab here with everything that missed and turn his hand into a bluff, when you open hands like J6s from MP I expect you to open a wide range and when you hit as hard as top pair, as played. I can’t fold. 

He bets half pot, you have to call 40060 to win a pot of 160240, that means you get 25% on the call. You need to have the best hand 25% of the time here and in this case I think you do.

Not sure what other people got to say about this. Would like to hear some more opinions as well. 

The 8 on the river either completes gutshot draws or gives them showdown value so gutshots are out of consideration. 

Overcards/Ace high are likely to want to showdown at the river. If he wanted to bluff with these, he’d be better off check raising the flop rather than hoping i won’t bet the turn and then bluffing the river out of position.

I expect the vast majority of pairs to check with the intention of bluff-catching or just hoping to get to showdown.

This leaves villain with a very small bluffing range on an 8 river. Although I reckon you make great points about the kind of odds he’s getting.