Digging up an old Sklansky post...

[Stork]

"It's right to call. It's better to come out betting. I have written someplace that I once bet 87 of hearts into eight players when the pot was capped preflop and it came TT5 with one heart. Same principle here."

This was Sklanksy's response to a hand posted a while ago where Hero sees a flop of K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] that was capped with 7 players in, with Hero holding A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Hero checked and when it got back around to him he was faced with calling 3 cold.
I think I need a little help with this, more with Sklansky's 87s example than the hand in the original post. In Sklansky's example I'd want to see the turn as cheaply as possible, and I can't imagine that betting out here would fold any type of hand that had any piece of this flop.

Vehn wrote (hope he doesn't mind me posting this):
"I like betting the flop plenty. You're going to want to see the turn for sure anyways and you know at least one bet is going in somewhere. Betting out disguises your hand for basically no additional cost and limits your liability in that its possible that your initial bet will cause someone not to raise, in other words you won't be faced with a difficult decision on the flop like you did here because you're artificially giving yourself pot odds to call additional bets on the flop. If that makes any sense. Also since its online with a 4 bet cap it also limits your liability to a degree."
in response to the original thread, and I think alot of these reasons make sense, especially if you think leading it out will dissuade people from wanting to raise you. This won't always be the case though. However, giving yourself artificical pot odds is no reason at all to bet out.

So anyway, I'm just looking for a bit more insight into this topic (not that Vehn didn't do a good job), particularly in Sklansky's example. I expect to hear alot of "If you're going to call, it's better to come out betting" type responses, but why is that always so? Is it because it increases the chance of folding hands that you want to fold, or is it to keep the other players actions honest, or dissuade them from raising you? I guess these would be the reasons, and I suppose I sort of answered myself here, but I'll leave the post up if anyone else wants to discuss this.

[daryn]

I like betting the flop plenty. You're going to want to see the turn for sure anyways and you know at least one bet is going in somewhere. Betting out disguises your hand for basically no additional cost and limits your liability in that its possible that your initial bet will cause someone not to raise, in other words you won't be faced with a difficult decision on the flop like you did here because you're artificially giving yourself pot odds to call additional bets on the flop. If that makes any sense. Also since its online with a 4 bet cap it also limits your liability to a degree.