Good, bad, ugly or a delightful melange of all three?

[SpaceAce]

Assume no reads except that the villain is aware of the concept of stealing blinds.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif, T/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">7 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero calls.

Flop: (4.50 SB) K/images/graemlins/heart.gif, Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, T/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets</font>, Hero calls.

Turn: (3.25 BB) 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>...

SpaceAce

[wrto4556]

For some reason I dont like these. They hardly ever work...this is a small pot, too.

Having said that, I don't know how else to play it. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Maybe C/r the flop to see if your T is good.

[Shillx]

This play is +EV compared to folding, but is marginally -EV compared to checking and calling if you don't have any folding equity. Another concern is that you will probably get 3-bet on this board far more often then you will fold out a hand like Q8.

In this spot, I think that it is close between check/calling and bet/call with the latter being used as a setup play for those times that I bet/3-bet the turn with a strong hand. It also sets you up for a river c/r if you hit one of your many outs (not to mention it will sometimes pick up the pot right there).

Brad

[SmileyEH]

Say you have 30% pot equity right now. Therfore the EV of calling is 30% of the subsequent pot, or 1.5BB. So calling nets you an EV of .5BB.

Now if you raise you are putting in 2BB with still 30% pot equity of a 7BB pot for a net EV of .1BB (2.1BB - 2BB). Therefore if your oppoenent never folds you lose .4BB raising instead of calling.

However, if he folds you win 4BB. You need to make up a .4BB difference so if your opponent folds more than 10% of the time raising is preferable.

While this analysis is extremely simplistic I think it shows that raising here is IMO more profitable than calling.

-SmileyEH

[SpaceAce]

Thanks for the replies. I've decided that, for a variety of reasons, I like my turn raise. I liked it when I did it, then I wasn't so sure and now I'm back to liking it again. In case anyone is curious, my opponent tanked for a while then folded.

SpaceAce