Should I check the turn

[carlosoli]

Having the third 3 is a pretty good card to hit. It makes the chances of him having it even more slim. I agree that you don't want to give an A a free draw to hit on the river. I pump it the whole way. You may be up against a Q who will pay you off.

[allintime333]

i thought he was on the flush draw

[Fantam]

[ QUOTE ]
i thought he was on the flush draw

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, so you decided to wait to see if the river didnt complete the possible flush before betting or raising again.

The reason why it would have been better to bet the turn, is because even if your opponent was on a flush draw, you were still the favourite to win.

On the turn your opponent would have needed 1 of 9 cards to complete a flush from 46 possible unknown cards on the river.

So your odds of winning if he was on a flush draw were 37:9 or a little over 4:1.

On the river, your opponent will often fold if he was drawing and missed his draw. So, you gain bets from him by betting the earlier streets, when you are likely to have the best hand and he is chasing.

Sometimes, your drawing opponents will make their draws on the river and you will lose. However, when the odds are in your favour, over time you should win more by betting in these situations.

Betting in this way, commonly known as value betting , is one of the fundamental concepts for winning at poker.

By the way, welcome to the forums. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[OrigamiSensei]

So allin, when you say "I thought he was on the flush draw" what does that mean in terms of your turn check? Did you think if you bet he would fold? Were you trying to give a free card hoping he'd hit his flush? We're trying to get a picture of your thinking during the hand.

[allintime333]

yes origami I wanted him to hit the flush and I didnt want to lose him to a bet on the turn

[OrigamiSensei]

Okay, so let's pursue this line of questioning. According to the hand record and trying to piece it together you had seven players go to the flop so there's a minimum of 70 cents in there and the bet and two calls raises that number to 85 cents. Now, your opponent is getting 8.5:1 on his money when he's only a little worse than 4:1 to hit, or twice the money he needs to make his call "profitable" (of course we know a flush is dead here). Do you think he'll call a turn bet or fold?

To the rest of you: I beg a little patience of you here. I am well aware that this conversation is tangential to the real themes of the hand but I want to pursue this path of discussing his thinking. Once we reach a conclusion as to whether his thinking is logical and reasonable we can look at other ways to think about and play the hand.

[allintime333]

I thought he would fold to a bet if I did bet on the turn

[GLKST526]

*grunch*

Having bet the flop, I think you should bet the turn here. Only one card beats you, and give your river raise you aren't (nor should you be) worried about it.

The problem with checking the turn here is that you have to be fairly sure that a) he's going to fold the turn if you bet and b) he's going to bet the river, then call your raise. I don't know if you had reads that would suggest this was likely. If you don't think he would call the turn, then playing for a raise on the river seems counterproductive, as I imagine he would fold most hands to a river raise that he'd fold to a turn bet. I think in the long run, you'll make the most bets by straight forwardly betting both the turn and river, besides the obvious benefit that you can possibly get an ace to fold on the turn that would beat you on the river.

If this is total gibberish I apologize, I think the sun has fried my brain. It's easily 100+ degrees here

[allintime333]

no I love to hear what everyone has to say but the nine was a bad card for me worse than ac ace would have been

[OrigamiSensei]

Now, you keep saying "he". You have two opponents in this hand. Which opponent is "he" and what are you thinking about the other opponent at this point?