Basic strat -- set on a draw-heavy board

[Bort99]

Can we do anything but psr?

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
4 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
Hero: $24.05
Button: $8.40
SB: $56.30
BB: $40.80

Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is UTG with 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
<font color="#cc0000">Hero raises to $1</font>, Button calls, SB calls, BB folds.

Flop: J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] ($3.25, 3 players)
<font color="#cc0000">SB bets $2</font>, <font color="#cc0000">Hero raises to $9.25</font>, 2 folds.
Uncalled bets: $7.25 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $7.25

[SykoraG]

I would raise it to 7, 9.25 is overkill. Must make draws pay ... nice hand nothing wrong with it.

[Jouster777]

The raise to $9 means that any simple FD (4:1 odds) is just priced out even if villain will get his stack in every time. I don't think its overkill but I usually will raise just a bit less. Anything $7-9 is fine though.

[nightlyraver]

I make that raise any day of the week and twice on Sundays...

[AceLuby]

Totally standard. And the raise is a PSB, not really overkill. (5.25 in the pot + $2 to call = 7.25 which means a PS raise is 9.25)

[AKQJ10]

Of course the idea is to get draws to call incorrectly, not to induce folds. Depending on how you plan to play the hand, a big raise might or might not be inappropriate.

Now, what constitutes an incorrect call is a little complex. Are you going to pay off a flush? What about a queen, ten, or seven? If you might pay some of these off, then implied odds demand a much bigger raise.

But NLHE:TAP discusses that when you can put your opponent on a variety of draws, you don't want to figure odds based only on the strongest of the draws. Villain could have zero, four, or eight outs (with river redraws). The zero or eight are most likely, but you don't want to just assume you're against an eight-outer (which isn't really an eight-outer given your river redraws).

The zero-out hands you haven't even considered are AJ or KJ, which are very much in your opponent's range! In those cases, you certainly want a call from a hand drawing dead, and a huge raise is going to make it very hard for them to call.

As a final consideration, if your opponent makes a flush or straight (without a flush on board), but the board pairs, you have a beautiful beautiful situation where you'll certainly get the rest of the stacks. So that improves the IO situation somewhat and reduces the price you have to charge (again per NLHE:TAP), although there won't be a lot of stack left over for the river unless the flush or straight checks on the turn and you check behind.

So much to think about, but I'm fairly confident that advice to ONLY charge the wrong price to a flush draw is pretty erroneous. Against Villain's range I would put in a robust raise but not a PSR, making it something like $5.50 - $6 to go. (Of course if you think the range we've discussed is likely to call $10 or a push then raise to whatever they'll call; you always want to maximize your EV here.) Ideally you'd like AJ to put you on a draw!

[Edit: If my understanding of NLHE:TAP backed up by my own intution is somehow inappropriate to uSNL, I'm interested in arguments why that would be. If you're always going to lose your stack to a made flush then I can see why raising the draw out wouldn't even be a horrible result, but you don't have to lose your stack to a flush.]

[eigenvalue]

This is gooooottttt!

[4_2_it]

The raise is pot-sized and fine. I'm not worried about giving odds or bet sizing, I'm worried about the eleventy billion turn cards that kill my action, so I want as much in the pot now as I can get. What hand does villain hold that will call a raise to $7, but fold to a raise to $9?

[AKQJ10]

AJ