pot odds and raising on the turn

[jat850]

The decision to bet out or raise is a decision that LOOKS FORWARD to the bets that should come in from that action. The decision to call LOOKS BACK at pot odds on whether to call or cold call. Looking forward after the turn card, you had too few players and too low a probability of drawing your winner to justify a raise. Conversely, the pot odds looking backwards were clearly present to make a call.

I recently capped a flop with just a good flush draw ( no board pairs either) because there were 5 other players coming along for the ride. My odds of drawing the nut flush was about 35%. My odds of winning would be slightly less than that. But for every $1 I put in the pot, $5 other dollars were going in as well. With about a 1/3 chance of winning, my flop raise made sense because i needed only 2 other players to call to have my raise be EV+.

I missed on the turn. Now my odds of drawing were about 20% and 2 people dropped out before the betting got to me. On the turn I did not raise because my odds of success had gone down AND I had lost future bets from the folders.

I hope this example makes the difference in the calculation between raising and calling easier for you.

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about equity here. If you are HU at the turn, then theoretically, you need better than 50% equity to raise according to your argument. Now if you have an overcard and four card flush draw heads up, and say your overcard outs are all clean, so that gives you 12 outs or 25% equity so you shouldn't raise, but I would think in a HU situation, you quite often would want to raise here. Do you need to adjust for HU situations or would you play be the same criteria no matter what.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite often, HU and short handed pots have a certain amount of Fold equity that you can add to your hand equity to move your play from call to raise.
You also have to factor the chance that your hand is ahead into the mix.

But the requirement of 50% or fair share stays the same.

[7stud]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about equity here. If you are HU at the turn, then theoretically, you need better than 50% equity to raise according to your argument.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you are heads up then your raise can only be matched by exactly one caller, which means you are getting 1:1 on your raise. Therefore, you need a hand that is better than 1:1 to win, which is the same thing as saying your hand must be favored to win or that you have a better than 50% chance of winning.