Raise flop or wait until the turn?

[manwhoonlyeats]

Is this a good spot for this play? Since a lot of the deck would've been scary I decided to see how I faired on 4th street before I raised. Also, how is the river play?
Cheers!
-'Eats

Party Poker 0.50/1 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with J/images/graemlins/heart.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, CO folds, Button folds, SB calls, BB calls, MP2 calls.

Flop: (8 SB) 4/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 5/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets</font>, BB folds, MP2 calls, Hero calls.

Turn: (5.50 BB) 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(3 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets</font>, MP2 calls, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, SB calls, MP2 calls.

River: (11.50 BB) 3/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(3 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="CC3333">MP2 bets</font>, Hero calls, <font color="CC3333">SB raises</font>, MP2 calls, Hero folds.

Final Pot: 16.50 BB

[ChromePony]

In my opinion this is absolutely not a good flop play for just the reason you mentioned. You are likely ahead at this point, but facing drawers who want to see the turn for as little as possible. You need to make them pay to complete their draws, in addition your raise may represent a made flush to them and scare some straight drawers off. If someone did make their flush on the flop they will likely 3-bet or let you know about it on the turn. SB's check raise on the river strongly suggests that you are behind here and I think the fold is a good play. Other than the flop, well played in my opinion.

[Ed Miller]

Is this a good spot for this play? Since a lot of the deck would've been scary I decided to see how I faired on 4th street before I raised.

Yes. This is a textbook spot to wait. Raising the flop is a significant error, IMO.

[vulturesrow]

Interesting post. Here is my take. It is a scary board...which is exactly why you need to bet it..If someone has the goods, they will let you know /images/graemlins/wink.gif. With 11.5 BB in the pot on the river, I am probably making a crying call on the river after the raise knowing I am most likely beaten. Unfortunately this is one of those situation where the any ace morons get paid off. Nice post.

Chris

Edit:
Sorry misread yhour post..somehow I missed the fact that you called, for some reason I thought you opened the betting on the flop. Sorry.

[Eclypse]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this a good spot for this play? Since a lot of the deck would've been scary I decided to see how I faired on 4th street before I raised.

Yes. This is a textbook spot to wait. Raising the flop is a significant error, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ed,

This is a “textbook” example? After seeing your post I went back and reread the section in SSHE called, “Two Overpair Hands”. While I am pretty sure I understand the concepts for waiting to raise in the book example, I am not sure I see the same principles here.

While I can see how a raise on the flop might be unlikely to induce your opponents to fold and also that your hand is vulnerable, I don’t see how your pot equity is going to change drastically in your favor on the turn unless precisely the jack of clubs falls. Every other card either completes a flush for someone holding a single diamond, improves straight-draws, or puts an overcard on the board.

Why is a raise the right play when the 2 falls on the turn? You’re still not going to induce someone to fold that wouldn’t have folded had you raised on the flop, and your pot equity hasn’t changed much.

A lot of this is new to me, so please help me to understand.

As far as the river goes, I think the chances of Hero being beat are pretty high, but I’m not sure it’s quite 94%, so I would probably have to call here.

[cold_cash]

Your pot equity has changed a whole bunch; assuming you're still ahead on the turn, you only have to dodge one more street as opposed to two.

[Eclypse]

[ QUOTE ]
Your pot equity has changed a whole bunch; assuming you're still ahead on the turn, you only have to dodge one more street as opposed to two.

[/ QUOTE ]

But what are you hoping to dodge on the turn? The jack of clubs is the ONLY good card.

[cold_cash]

There are plenty more safe cards than the J /images/graemlins/club.gif

How about the T/images/graemlins/spade.gif? 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif? 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif? etc..

These are just specific examples off the top of my head, and there are plenty other "safe" cards.

There's also the possibility that a King or Queen could be safe.

A card that pairs the board could be, too.

Believing that the ONLY card that can come off we like is the J/images/graemlins/club.gif, and ANY card other than that will cost us the pot is being far too pessimistic, IMO. (This might not be what you're saying, but that's what I'm getting.)

[Eclypse]

What I gather from reading Ed’s book, is that you want to just call on the flop when you have a small pot-equity edge if it looks like your edge will increase dramatically on the turn. My point is that I don’t see how on the flop you could expect a drastic pot-equity edge on the turn enough to justify the principle.

Like I said, I’m new to this concept, so I could VERY EASILY be wrong here. I’m just trying to understand.

If one of those cards you mention falls on the turn, it may very well be somewhat safe and increase your equity, but not drastically. If you didn’t push a small equity edge on the flop, why should you wait to push it in the turn?

[chief444]

[ QUOTE ]
I don&amp;#8217;t see how on the flop you could expect a drastic pot-equity edge on the turn enough to justify the principle.


[/ QUOTE ]
Because as cold cash said you now only have one more card (the river) to worry about. Say, for example, 1/2 the cards in the deck will give you a second best hand (may not be far off in this case). This means on the flop you are about a 25% favorite. Once a blank comes on the turn you are not about a 50% favorite. Pretty big change in pot equity I'd say.

[Eclypse]

I guess where I'm having the problem here is that I don't see any cards that could fall on the flop that are a total blank to this flop except cards above a jack. While I agree that your equity increases somewhat in many cases, I don't think it doubles.

I realize I could be WAY off base here, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

If your equity is unlikely to increase drastically, aren't we better off raising on the flop?

[cold_cash]

Your pot equity may not double, but evidently it increases enough to make waiting best. I think our main point of difference is what you consider a "drastic" change in pot equity. It may not "drastically" increase, but it increases enough to make waiting until the turn to push your edge preferable.*

Like I said in my other posts, I think there are substantially more "safe" cards that can come on the expensive streets than you realize.

* I'm also wrestling with these concepts, and these posts are just me thinking out loud.

[Eclypse]

The more I look at this, the more I feel that there isn't a card in the deck (other than the jack of clubs) that could fall on the turn that would increase your equity more than about 10-12%.*

However, I would aggree that you could add to your potential equity increase if you thought you could get someone to fold on the turn. Is that what I'm not getting here?

Ed Miller, where are you?

*EDIT: I do see how a card (say the six of diamonds) could dramatically decrease your equity.