Facing flop donkbet with big draw

I like to raise flops with hands like this, first of all because you are a solid favorite, and second because opponents will not give you much credit for a good hand yet; you might even be lucky and BB would make it three bets with a lower flush draw or something like 89.

[AlanBostick]

You mean, if you just call here you expect the BB to bet out when another diamond hits? When an ace hits?

Reasons to raise here:

(1) You just might have the best hand.

(2) You might be up against K6, and be the favorite to win with your 15-out draw.

(3) It can buy you a free river card if you miss on the turn.

(4) Even if a raise here were slightly -EV, it buys you action next time when you raise preflop with a pair and flop undercards.

Reasons to smooth-call here:

(1) Uhhhhhh.... Give me a minute, I'll think of something.... Time, please....

[veganmav]

I didn't know this kind of hand was so controversial. I raise it in almost all spots.

[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.

[AlwaysWrong]

[ QUOTE ]
You mean, if you just call here you expect the BB to bet out when another diamond hits? When an ace hits?

Reasons to raise here:

(1) You just might have the best hand.

(2) You might be up against K6, and be the favorite to win with your 15-out draw.

(3) It can buy you a free river card if you miss on the turn.

(4) Even if a raise here were slightly -EV, it buys you action next time when you raise preflop with a pair and flop undercards.

Reasons to smooth-call here:

(1) Uhhhhhh.... Give me a minute, I'll think of something.... Time, please....

[/ QUOTE ]

(1) How often do we have the best hand? How often to we win unimproved here? What does "just might" mean?

(2) How much pure value do we gain if the BB has K6 and the sb folds?

(2.b) How much pure value would we have gained by letting the sb come along with 33 or 76 or J2, etc if we called?

-->Is being a favorite really a reason at all to raise?

(3) Given our large number of outs how much is a free card worth?

(4) Do we expect our opponents to even register this in a 9-handed online game?

[ QUOTE ]
You mean, if you just call here you expect the BB to bet out when another diamond hits? When an ace hits?

[/ QUOTE ]

Often, yes.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
I raise because I have the best hand a fair amount of the time here, I have a billionty outs when I don't.

Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

how did you calculate a billionty outs? I only got a gazillion.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
I think both raising and calling have benfits, and i'm not sure that either play is much better than the other, but i'm inclined to just call because i have position on both players, and i feel like if they are bad as you described you have the possibility of getting the double big bet if they donk on the turn if you improve.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is the only legitimate reason brought forth in this thread for just calling.