[thepizzlefosho]

[ QUOTE ]
i like the flop raise against the more malleable opponents. the ideal line here is raise the flop, bet the turn, check the river. If I think I can get away with that line against a decent nine or a good eight it is clearly better as I save a SB when I'm behind and gain a SB when I improve (lots of people this works against will never bet call when we improve).

However there are too many opponents that will play pretty perfectly against a flop raise - with their air they'll either fold right away or call and fold the turn; or they'll lead the turn (or 3bet the flop) with made hands or pair+draw type hands. Or sometimes they'll call the flop raise, c/c the turn, and donk a blank river with a hand like 8x, losing us an extra SB over just calling down. We're forced to call these types down because we have lots of outs to improve and we never know when they might show up with a hand like 65 or JT. these type of players are also the type to value bet thinner, which means we gain by getting a double bet in when they lead on our scary improvement cards. If you haven't figured it out by now, this guy plays a lot better than the first guy.

From what I've noticed in my games, there are a lot more players online that fit the second criteria much more closely than the first, so most of the time I play online I just call down. On the other hand there are a lot of guys that I play live that fit the first criteria so I find myself raising the flop most of the time I'm playing live. both lines have merit, it just depends on how your opponents will react to your raise.

the really nice thing is that you can pretty much figure all this out by doing it or seeing it done once and see what happens. If he just called your flop raise and check/called the turn, there's a very very good chance you made the right decision against this particular guy. If he 3bet the flop, or donked the turn, or called your flop raise and folded the turn, it turns out you made a mistake by raising the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

perfect post jba, and pretty much sums up my thinking and play on these hands. Against most aggressive online players (which tends to be a lot of online players) I take a call down line. But against some very weak and bad players I prefer to raise and bet the turn since their donk will rep either a very weak made hand or a bad Ax bluff a lot.

OP jba's post is worth a read and reread. I know I read it twice.