[Aaron W.]

I wonder what the responses would be if this thread were titled "Overpair on a ragged flush draw board" and hero gave his read as "I've only been at the table for a couple orbits, and I have no specific reads yet."

Suppose you're ahead at the moment and that you've got about 70% equity in this 17 BB pot because you're against a pair and flush draw (BB). Since UTG looks like he's stacking off, you can reasonably expect you, UTG, and SB to be putting in 3 bets each by the showdown (SB has two more to put in, UTG has one more to put in). I don't know what to make of BB's hand, so we'll just say he's putting in 2 more bets instead of the 3. So 70% of the time, you win a 17+2+1+2 = 22 BB pot. 30% of the time, you lose 3 BB.

What if you're behind? If you're behind, we'll say you win about 5% of the time (you have 2-3 outs when behind). So you lose 3 BB 95% of the time and win 22 BB 5% of the time when you're behind.

How often do you need to be ahead to call this down?

EV = (Ahead)*(.70*22 + .30*(-3)) + (1 - Ahead)*(.05*22 - .95*(-3))
= 14.5*(Ahead) + (1 - Ahead)*(-1.75)
= 16.25*(Ahead) - 1.75

For EV neutral, you need (Ahead) = 11.7%. Are you ahead 10% of the time here? Probably not. Maybe it's about 5-7%, depending on the quality of hero's read.

That said, I still think I end up calling down.

The point is that you don't need to be ahead very often to make a call correct, even if you sink 3 BB into this hand when you lose.