Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Raise or fold

I haven't been playing poker for a week or so, as I've been pretty busy with school related stuff. But I'm still reading and studying. I've pretty much dropped no-limit hold'em and am just studying limit hold'em, also reading a bit of 7-stud theory.

Anyway here was an interesting hand I saw on twoplustwo. This was from mikel:
20-40 good game. i have 5d5s in cutoff. 2 loose players limp, next guy who is mediocre and loose raises, i flat call, both blinds call, all call. 6 of us for 2 bets.

the flop is T32 all diamonds. checked to me and i check.

the turn is Tc. checked to second limper who bets. he tends to have something when he bets, but it'd be hard to say how strong or weak his hand is here. preflop raiser folds, i call.


The flop needs to be bet. Checked to you, you could have the best hand, and pretty much anyone folding could potentially tremendously add to your equity here. People make some really weak fold on monotone boards, and with a pot this big it is certainly worth betting this.

Given that mike checked, he HAS to raise the turn. Hand protection, charge draws, all that good stuff. And there is even a reasonable chance that he is ahead of the turn bettor. And even if he is behind, he now has a clean 4-outer that can save him on the river.