Two Plus Two Newer Archives - NL50 - flopped nutstraight + flushdraw

You've got several options in this situation:

1. Smooth-call the minraise. This option gives you the best chance for building a bigger pot, but it also gives your opponents the biggest chance for sucking out on you. You would be unhappy to see an 8, 9, T, J, Q, or heart on the turn or river, since they could potentially counterfeit your hand or give an opponent a better hand. With a multiway pot you've got to be somewhat worried about these possibilities. If I smooth-call this raise, I'm doing so for the added deception and I'm intending to bet or raise heavily on the turn. NOTE: I do NOT recommend this strategy as your default; your hand is too vulnerable to really be thrilled playing it slow and safe in a multiway pot.

2. Reraise small. With $43 in the pot already after you call, any raise to less than $35 ($25 extra) would qualify as a small raise. These small raises all serve the purpose of trying to "sweeten" the pot while your opponents are still interested. The big downside here is that you have already bet this round, and now you're three-betting to a size that is begging to be called -- even a reasonably dense opponent will sense danger.

3. Reraise big. A big reraise in this pot would be to $50 or more -- something roughly pot-sized or larger. The benefit of these raises is that, while you reveal that your hand is strong, your opponents have little ability to take advantage of this extra information. Among these large reraises I like pushing quite a bit -- as long as you're tipping your hand, you might as well force them to make a huge mistake. One pleasant side-benefit of pushing here is that a somewhat savvy opponent could easily interpret your move as a semi-bluff with a draw, and therefore might call you down reasonably lightly. By mimicking the behavior that an aggressive player would take with a strong draw you get called more lightly and you also lend yourself more folding equity on future semibluffs.

If I choose to three-bet here (which I often will) it's going to be all-in: I've already built a reasonably large pot (38 BBs is no slouch) and I want to win this damned thing. If someone wants to call me on a draw they'll be making a big mistake, and I'd love to stack someone here. If they both fold and escape from the pot I win a large pot uncontested with a hand that is unlikely to improve and that faces several potential scare cards later in the hand; if I get a caller I will usually win a tremendously large pot and also get some nice metagame advantages for later hands.

If the hand were heads-up I'd be more likely to smooth-call it, especially if I had position. As it stands -- OOP and multiway -- I'm just three-betting all-in and seeing what happens.