raising the flop for value - countings outs exercise

[magates]

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Anyway if you consider 5.5 outs for your gut-shot and BDFD on the flop, then I calculate that you would need 5 opponents to call to be able to bet the flop for value. (I wont bother you with the maths.)

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I'm assuming that you're measuring his equity with two cards to come, but if his backdoor flush goes away on the turn he might not even have pot odds to call a turn bet with nothing but a weak gut-shot draw and a questionable A. I don't like to look at flop to river odds unless I know I'm going to have odds to call a bet on the turn, which, depending on the size of the pot, usually means at least 7 outs, and often more.

[VoraciousReader]

Here is my grunched out count:

3 As: heavily discounted because it's a top pair hand and because we have a lousy kicker= 1.5 outs

4 4s: to the 2nd nut straight, nearly pristine= 4 outs

BDFD: 1.5 outs

So I count 7 outs. There are 3 others in the pot with us, so I don't see this as a value raise. We are out of position to take a free card, and we're not folding anybody because they're already committed for one bet. I don't think I raise here.

-------------pauses, reads thread------
Dangit, missed the 45678. I still don't raise.

[VoraciousReader]

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This is not to say that this might not be a good raise, as a semi-bluff. It's just not good if you think you're raising for value

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Who are we semi-bluffing? Everyone has already called 1 bet. Do we really expect them to fold for one more?

[aces_dad]

I agree they're unlikely to fold on the flop, so leading the turn after a flop c/r could be considered the entire semi-bluff sequence.

I'm actually surprised he got 3 callers on the turn after doing this.

[Disconnected]

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Anyway if you consider 5.5 outs for your gut-shot and BDFD on the flop, then I calculate that you would need 5 opponents to call to be able to bet the flop for value. (I wont bother you with the maths.)

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I'm assuming that you're measuring his equity with two cards to come, but if his backdoor flush goes away on the turn he might not even have pot odds to call a turn bet with nothing but a weak gut-shot draw and a questionable A. I don't like to look at flop to river odds unless I know I'm going to have odds to call a bet on the turn, which, depending on the size of the pot, usually means at least 7 outs, and often more.

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Are you talking about betting or calling the flop when you say you don't like to look at flop to river odds? If the pot is big enough, you should generally call with strong BD draws (like a BDFD to the nut straight) on the flop. You have to re-evaluate the turn, of course, but you can't discount flop -> river odds completely, which is why we assign outs to those draws.

I'm not sure you're disagreeing with this in your post, but it wasn't clear to me whether you were talking about betting/raising or calling.

[Henke]

Just thought I would add a reason why I wouldn't raise this even if it would be marginally profitable; your relative position to the raiser. The 4 is a semi-hidden out, which probably wouldn't prevent BB from betting out again on the turn. Also, since he's BB, and betting into 3 ppl, he's not very likely to be bluffing, so if you do spike the 4, you'll be able to checkraise the field for big bets instead.

[magates]

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Are you talking about betting or calling the flop when you say you don't like to look at flop to river odds? If the pot is big enough, you should generally call with strong BD draws (like a BDFD to the nut straight) on the flop. You have to re-evaluate the turn, of course, but you can't discount flop -> river odds completely, which is why we assign outs to those draws.

I'm not sure you're disagreeing with this in your post, but it wasn't clear to me whether you were talking about betting/raising or calling.

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I wasn't very clear, sorry. I was talking about deciding whether or not to bet or raise a draw for value on the flop.

[magates]

BD draws confuse me a bit when I'm trying to determine pot equity on the flop. You're essentially drawing to a draw from the flop to the turn, but you're looking at your odds of completing the BD draw from the flop to the river.

I usually make equity decisions based on outs that I can count on all the way to the river and end up ignoring BD draws when deciding whether or not to bet or raise a draw for value because they will likely vanish on the turn anyway. The 1.5 outs that they represent would rarely make the difference between just calling and betting or raising anyway, as it doesn't represent much in the way of pot equity.

I guess with a discounted open-ended straight draw it could make the difference between calling and betting or raising vs. 3 opponents . . . pretty marginal, but maybe I'm missing out on some value bets.

[Eeegah]

Basically the odds of a backdoor flush coming in is the product of getting one flush card on the turn and another on the river:

(9/47)*(8/46)=3.3% chance of your flush coming in.

It just so happens that a 1.5 outer is 1.5/47=3.2%, so we can say that a BD flush draw is worth 1.5 outs.

Straights are a bit more complicated since the odds are different depending on the kind of straight you have, and can be 1.5, 1 or 0.5 outs depending.

[Fantam]

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However, I am not sure that you should include the 1.5 outs for the A overcard in your calculation to determine whether you can raise this flop for value. Thats because if you pair your A, you could still lose the hand.

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But isn't that why you only count them as 1.5 in the first place? If you ignore them completely you are effectively saying that there is 0% chance of winning if an A turns up.

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No I am not ignoring the 1.5 Ace pairing outs completely. I am counting them when considering whether to call the flop bet.

However, I dont think that they are good enough to include them when considering whether to raise the flop for value, because they are not outs to a nut hand.