[gergery]

At first I thought it was very bad, but after running some numbers, I think your semi-bluff here is only slightly EV negative.

I played around with some math a bit. First, let’s say you check. Then 24 cards miss and you fold for a net EV of 0 for you. For 20 cards you win half the pot worth 1.75bb so your weighted average EV if you check is about .8BB (no split for low and just one opponent to keep things easy).

If you bet and are called then on 24 cards you miss and fold for -1EV and on 20 cards you bet and get a profit of roughly +2.25EV (I’m using some simplifying assumptions on how many callers), for a net EV of around +.5 or so.

Solve for the math, and your bluff bet needs to generate a fold around 10-15% of the time or so to make betting profitable.

So, how often will the bluff work? If you assume that any set, any flushdraw 9 or higher, and any 23xx will call, that’s about a 30% chance of randomly being dealt it for 1 opponent, so for 6 opponents I think your chances of success are around the 10-15% you need. I think weak flushes, sets and 23xx could all check this, and all may call you here too, so the checking doesn’t mean a much greater chance of success.

There are many things that could change this – if your table has people who like slowplaying, checkraising, calling with weaker hands, or being tricky then checking is better. But betting out here is not as bad as I thought, if you assume at least some fold equity.

--greg