75 Stud Hand

[SweetLuckyMe]

[ QUOTE ]
Mason is right...but the thing is there are players who bet and pay off a raise with Queens up here. Also, if you sometimes make these relatively thin river raises it makes you much tougher to play against.

[/ QUOTE ] I agree completely. If against a very good player, looking at it in a vacuum, then Mason is correct. However, looking at it over a large sample size, I believe that there is a higher overall long-term expectation in the river raise because of the number of players who will pay it off with q's up.

Blumpkin's point about making you harder to play against is also *extremely* important. Even if the raise were only EV neutral, the effect on your image is certainly worth something. It's kind of the same concept as why you often want to re-raise a lock low heads up in stud8 - it costs nothing except possibly a bit more rake, but it often allows you to get paid off an extra bet on the end when you have a scooper. The illusion of action, when the cost is minimal, is beneficial in all forms of stud. When it is actually positive EV, as I believe it is in this queens up case, it has a double benefit. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]