Just very generally does it make more sense to check call or check raise top pair plus nut flush draw and if "it depends" what does it depend on?

eg; we flat 3xbb open w As8s from bb vs button 100 bb deep.
Flop;Ac7s4s
We check
Villain bets 1/2 pot
We; call or raise?

In this situation I prefer a call. I don't want to fold out a non-A, and I don't want to be blown off my hand or flipping for stacks against better kicker)

I think it depends on:

1. Will your opponent fold a better hand on the flop? Lean toward raising.

2. Will you get more value from worse hands unimproved? Lean toward just calling.

Will your opponent pay you off if the flush comes in? Lean toward calling.

As a population (in my opinion), opponents are likely to continue with TPGK, will call turns with worse FDs, and even some worse PPs, and are not going to hero fold big hands on spade rivers. So I think calling is good. Any reads to the contrary (i.e., will fold bigger aces but shove worse FDs) and I would raise.

This situation is an easy call. Bluff attacks strong Ax and often we need 3streets to get fold. On the other side we are safe against his weaker hands and want to keep all of them in game.

We might think up some more difficult flops e.g.
Flop;9c8s6s where c/r as bluff with A9 is more attractive.
Or Flop;7c5s2s where we might think about c/r with A7 for protection to equity share against overcards and turn it to bluff/or check on later streets.

Lead flop for $20. I'd take a bet/3 bet line.

Also, if button is aggro, then I'm 3!ing pre.

This is the sort of topic you could write a book about because the preflop action, stack sizes, villain's play, your image, the exact board and your hand all matter.

In this specific case, I would either lead the flop or check/call a reasonable bet, with the occasional check/raise. The check/raises are mostly aimed at villains who are raising/c-betting real wide so they often have air and likely have to fold even if they think we have a draw.

And I'm mostly folding preflop in this situation also. Weak suited aces play badly OOP. You will have more flops with one pair and no idea where you stand.

I play mostly heads up these days, nl10-nl25 online and my standard play w top pair +FD is to check call flop check call all turns and then call, fold, or raise river depending on run out bet sizing stacks etc etc
My buddy plays almost exclusively $2-$5 live.
He's been "looking to add more post flop raises to his game" because he's getting known as a nit by the other regulars.

I told him this was exactly the wrong type of hand to use for that purpose because it's such a perfect part of your range to use as a check-call. But he got some conflicting advice from his backer (a dude who's done coaching and vid content for popular site(s)) so I wondered if I was missing something.

W top pair, bad kicker, NFD, I think we just have so much incentive to call flop and turn;
Keep villains bluffs in (which we beat), he may barrel our improvement cards, don't blow him off a weak draw we could end up stacking, don't blow the pot up against 2pr+, have some flush draws in calling range, have some flop calls that raise on brick turns (when we improve to 2pr), have some hands that can call flop call turn fold river (good for balance and because live players usually under bluff river), and so on.

I think the lower my pair the more incentive I have to play it like a semi bluff and the higher my pair (more robust SDV) the more it favors call rather than raise.

Does that sound ~ correct?

Now you are talking about FR live or HU online? In HU toppair is often 3streets value disregarding the draw, cannot say whether checking TP is good in general.
In this game paired 4 brings two outs against AA/AK which is good, SDvalue is so tiny that we dont have to care.

I don't like turning this type of hand into a bluff. Hard to bluff someone off top pair 100 bbs deep, so this raise would get better to call and worse to fold. Maybe he could let go of A9 or AT if we keep firing.

If you want to bluff, I would do it on the turn. If he leads turn again, we're now almost certainly behind a better ace, and we can call or raise (probably not folding) based on his sizing and our reads. We're no longer bluffing with the best hand.

I would typically just call in this example.

If we raise, all we typically do is get called by better (rarely getting better to fold) and fold worse (and worse is typically drawing to just 1 or 2 outs). UI we don't really want to build a big pot, so lets just wait until we improve to do that.

The only real benefit (imo) of raising is that we'll perhaps get a "free" card on the turn against better, but we might have gotten that card anyways once we called the flop.

ETA: Also missed that we were OOP and calling a raise HU, which is almost never a good idea unless up against a really poor/spewy opponent (although for this cheap price, I could perhaps see myself doing it *if* we're also planning on stealing a lot of pots especially if opponents range is quite wide here and we have the image to do so).

GcluelessNLnoobG