One area I find myself second guessing myself is when you have the opportunity to take a free card (or a small enough bet that you are getting the proper pot odds to call) ("realize your equity") vs. betting to try to win the hand now (with nothing but a draw, A-high, etc.) but risking getting blown off your hand by a raise and being forced to fold due to improper odds to call.

This usually occurs when you think you are unlikely to have the best hand, and your V probably has a hand weaker than top pair that you will lose to at showdown if you don't improve but you're unsure if you can bet him off of it. Here's a hand that happened at 2/5 the other night.

Reads aren't entirely important. Players are rec players that limp too many hands, limp/call too many hands, play OOP too often, call raises with dominated hands too often, etc. Basically your run of the mill average player with plenty of leaks that is a break-even to losing player.

Effective stacks are around $750

UTG limps
MP limps
Hero (CO) raises to $30 with AT
BB calls $30
UTG calls $30
MP calls $30

Pot: $120

Flop: K J K

Checks to hero
Hero checks

Debatable if this is a c-bet or not. If I have A9o, I probably one-and-done c-bet this trying to take it down, but with the BDFD + gutter + overcard I try to err on the side of caution and take the free card.

Pot: $120

Turn: 4

BB bets $30
UTG calls $30
MP folds
Hero calls $30

So I am getting 6:1 pot odds on my call here with the NFD + gutter which is roughly 3:1 to hit on the river. This is a simple mathematically +EV decision. But is it preferable to think about BB's range and try to take the pot down now with a big raise at the expense of surrendering our equity if we get shoved on? A $30 into $120 pot is a weak bet. I'm guessing he has something like Jx, TT-88 here, with the occasional QT and the even more rare Kx, KJ or JJ for the nuts. I'm not really worried about boats right now since they are incredibly unlikely.

I think a raise to $175 here takes this down pretty damn often but I never know when to raise or just call when I have loads of potential equity to realize. It's a lot easier when I have no pair no draw, I can bluff raise/fold easily since it's my only way to win the hand.

Pot: $210

River: 5

BB checks
UTG checks
Hero checks

I just straight up missed a chance at stealing this pot on the river. The river checks tell me this is an orphan pot ripe for the picking, but instead of sacking up, betting $150 and scooping the pot, I just check it back content that I got to see all 5 cards so cheaply with the proper odds to do so. Hands like this always leave a sour taste in my mouth for not being aggressive enough, at what first glance appears to be the multiple opportunities to take the pot down.

I think this particular hand was played perfectly, spots that I love to get aggressive with gut shot nut flush draws are in position with dead money. Spots I hate getting aggressive are spots where your equity is only on the turn, and to make matters worse it's a paired board which means your ace may not be live or could even be drawing dead.

You played this perfect, you checked back an awful flop and gained equity, called getting solid pot odds and missed. And checked back a A high which as played may have show down value. Your line looks so unbelievable that if you bet the river your getting called by a J. And raising the turn is fine on a 9 high unpaired board where your ace could be live and no one can have either already a boat or equity against you with trips. I think you played this perfect IMO this is not the kind of spot to push small edges.

I would have raised turn to $140, pretty unlikely that one of them has a king and you still have outs + position, and you can just fold if you get 3b on turn.

I expect no one to have a K much here given the turn action. If turn had checked to you I'm sure you would have bet, as long as my image was decent I'd frequently treat the bb bet as if it were a check in terms of my decision (not my sizing obv)... I'd go ahead and raise it with a decent frequency. If he's weak you're not getting paid off anyway. If this is some inducing bet well then yeah we get blown off our hand but I think that's unlikely enough that winning the pot as a semi-bluff is a good result.

I think raising is better than calling.

Are we C betting if the middle card is the 7?

Isn't this one of those spots where we cbet flop small and then if called, bomb the turn because we know they are capped at 1 pair/draw type hands?

+1 Bluff with a draw when you don't mind folding it; pretty simple rule.

That's the whole crux of the argument. Is calling when pot odds > odds to hit superior to semi-bluff betting and risking having to bet/fold without realizing your equity?

I'm not sure if you can even do an EV calculation or not (Vernon?) but this specific hand is more or less just to provide an example of a fairly common situation where I can't figure out what is higher EV. Calling is clearly +EV but raising may be higher +EV. Probably villain dependent at the end of the day.

I'm probably c-betting 1/2 - 2/3 PSB on KK7ss if checked to here. I'd bet the same with AK or KQ.

I think Sklansky was pretty emphatic that (in addition to your FE, obv.) it's all about the value of your draw if you get there. I.e. implied odds.

Here, you're drawing to a flush on a paired board, so maybe implied odds are not great. If your draw is hidden, and getting there gives you the nuts, be less likely to bluff.

this is so similar to my misery: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-cbet-1560845/

the biggest problem is.. would u really check back on the flop with a hand thats raising the turn?

LOL, I was thinking about posting in this thread anyway...

The answer to your question can't be determined just by your pot odds, and in theory there's a calculation you could do, but in practice there are too many things you have to guess at to make it really ironclad. You need to know things like:

1. Fold equity: how often will I take the pot down with a raise? If you could win X% of the time by calling, but even more by raising, the extra money you risk by raising could easily make raising worthwhile.

2. Implied odds: how much will I get paid if I call and hit my hand? If a raise wins you the current pot Y% of the time, but you can stack someone on the river if you hit which happens X%, it may sometimes be worth passing on the current pot for a chance at the river bets, depending on how much they are.

3. A big one in this particular case, reverse implied odds: if I call and hit my hand, how often will I lose? The board is paired, and with 2 Broadway cards. You could be drawing dead. If you call, only to hit and go broke on the river when you're still behind, you'll wish you hadn't called.

In this particular case, our implied odds are severely hurt by our reverse implied odds. That tiny bet looks like either a weak hand that won't call much if we improve on the river, or a sucker bet with a hand that has you drawing dead. I really think you have virtually no implied odds in this spot. If someone has a strong hand, and you improve, you could be paying them off just as easily as vice versa.

As they discuss in NLHT&P--and some people on this forum find counterintuitive--this actually makes raising the turn more attractive, relative to calling. You're hoping everyone is weak and the hand ends now with you dragging the turn pot, because your implied odds if you call are so shaky. And if you get 3bet and blown off your draw, well, the board was paired so that's honestly probably fine. A 3bet means your draw isn't nearly as strong as it looks anyway.

EDIT: I see I was beaten to this point 2 posts up.

Reads are overly important if you want to really make high winrates at 1/2-2/5. In this hand I think checking the flop is good and players are generally used to cbets in position that they become scared of what you might have since you checked. Raising the turn makes your story of having a king much more believable than if you cbet the flop. You can get players to fold a lot of their jacks/smaller pairs and the amount you will take down is more lucrative as well.

So you think an OESD is a better candidate to take the pot odds call, while a NFD is better suited for a semi-bluff raise (in general)?

I can see that making sense intuitively. I bluff so many flush outs on the river when I was trying to hit a different hand that V's fold to the "obvious check/call turn bink flush river" bet that I think semi-bluffing is probably the way to go.

Bluffing the river is horrible with the line you took. Your never checking backon the flop and just flatting the 30$ with a king qq or aa. Any good player is going to look you up with a jack with the way you played the hand

Good thing I'm not playing against good players then eh?

I agree the line makes no sense vs. a good thinking player, but a bad player will convince himself you were slow playing AK trip K's and find a fold for $150.