[AlwaysWrong]

Ok, this is surprising to me so I'll respond in detail.

The argument for raise is basically that we have enough outs that the raise is for value. There are some other reasons:

(1) We might be ahead right now and raising can get us to showdown or make our opponent fold to our turn bet.
(2) We can opt to take a free card on the turn if we don't improve.
(3) Raising will often make the small blind fold and this improves our chances of winning the pot.

Regarding (1), how often do people think we will win a showdown unimproved here? The two most likely scenarios are that the bettor has a pair and the bettor has the flush or straight draws. Of these three possibilities the posibility that our opponent has a pair has to be the greatest by a significant margin. That means that we expect to have to improve to win this hand.

Regarding (2), we have enough outs that this is of very little value.

Regarding (3), it's hard for us to hit our hand, for it not to be best, and for it to have been possible to make the sb fold the hand that beat us. However if we do not need to hit to win (3) is very significant.

On the flop consider what you'd do if you know for sure that your opponent has a 6. Would you now still want to raise? If you would, I think you're making a big error. Raising now with ~50% pot equity and knocking out the sb is much worse than raising on the turn or river with ~80-90% pot equity.

Consider another case: we have 77 on this flop. Now should we raise or just call? People would probably come down on either side of this one, but call is certainly very viable. Having so many strong outs here is somewhat similar to having a set.

Conversely, if we are ahead, raising the flop is certainly better than calling. If the sb has, say, a 2 and we are ahead of the BB raising is also better than calling.

There is a balance here between the two possibilities and the decision to raise or call depends on how often you figure to be in either state and on the size of the pot.

I originally told Equal that this was an easy call, where you will sometimes raise the turn unimproved. Simply calling down unimproved is also an option. In retrospect the significant ability to win unimproved here could overwhelm other considerations (whereas 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] could just call). However, if we need to improve to win, which against many opponents we do, calling is clearly better. I'm astounded that so few people agree with this. Perhaps it's coloured by this being 20/40. If it helps, this hand wasn't actually 20/40, or anything close.