Interesting flop situation

[JrJordan]

Assume villains are unknown here.

Party Poker 5/10 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7/images/graemlins/club.gif, A/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
UTG calls, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, BB calls, UTG calls.

Flop: (6.40 SB) 8/images/graemlins/club.gif, 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
BB checks, <font color="#CC3333">UTG bets</font>, Hero...

I had a real tough decision analyzing this situation in play. The two choices are obviously raise or call, and I'd like a critique of my analysis:

My hand is pretty marginal at this point: gutshot, one overcard and another that might be good since UTG could be betting a draw, and the nut backdoor flush. Pot is decently sized at this point so it's worth playing for. A call here allows BB to stay in the hand and keep it protected so UTG will be less inclined to bet the turn with just a draw. It also costs less than raising since my hand is still fairly weak. Raising, however, gives me the chance to take control of the pot and isolate against a possible draw. I can reevaluate on the turn to whether I take a free card if checked to, or value bet vs. a draw and take a free showdown (I'd probably go for the latter). This is going to get expensive though if he has a pair worth calling down (which is any pair in this game).

I chose the first option to just call, but now I'm learning more towards raise. Your thoughts?

[wackjob]

I like to smoothcall here &amp; raise the turn on a blank that I figure doesn't make villains hand. Obviously I'd raise the turn on a card that made my hand.

[mscags]

I usually raise in these situation, because IMO when people lead out like this they are very often on some type of draw. If you can isolate it is usually a +EV play IMO. You just have to be disciplined enough to let your hand go when one or both of the draws come in and it looks like you are beat. The only problem with these is if villian has some combination of pair+draw then he is probably calling you down all of the way UI