[bicyclekick]

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bk can you explain why folding the flop is so bad? everyone seems so convinced that no one has a pair, but there's no way to know for sure. if a q and/or spade draw is out, then we only have a couple clean outs. But i guess getting 8:1 it's close. can you elaborate on the flop decision, guys?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ] We can't be overly concerned about the flush draw. Aware of it, yes, but not concerned. We have no reason to believe that either one of them has paired. We have reason to believe CO has not paired. Every indication is that we have 10 live outs. True, only 3 give us the nuts, but we are not, of course, only playing for the nuts. So, now we ask the question, "if we ran this experiment 10000 times, what % of the time do we really have 10 outs?" Using this number we now discount our outs - say 8-9 outs. OK, now we clearly have the odds to call here, particularily because we can get more bets in on later streets. We can garuantee at least 1BB, and I think we'll average about 2BBs or 4 SBs if we hit one of our outs. Getting 8.5:1 on our money we only needed 5.5 outs to make this call if there was no further action. But, obviously there will be more action and that action will be good for us.

I like Michael's play because it encourages ace-high or K-high hands to fold on a missed turn.

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Exactly.

The extra part of why I don't thnk anyone has anthing is because of the flop texture. The Q doesn't hit a ton of hands the raiser has, i mean, it could, but it's not like he's at least got a gutshot...he'll fold his JTs or KJo or often AJs there on the turn when you check/raise 2players like that. He'll be less likely to think you're trying to take the pot off him. and given the texture if the CO has a middle pair he's likely going to want to protect it and riase and he just called and on that bgoard it looks really weak.