Raise the flop or Call flop and raise turn

[Ivar]

Hey Guys,

sometimes I hear people say; I would have called the flop and raised the turn. Stox sometimes also says in hands; here we could raise the flop, but also call the flop and raise the turn. Now my question is;
- In what kind of situations do we 'raise the flop' and when do we 'call a flop and raise the turn'. Is this villain dependent? Is this dependent on the number of villains? etc.

Today I had this hand;
I was BB with KTo, everybody folded to SB who completed, I raised and SB called. The flop was T65 rainbow, SB donked into me and there came my question; should I raise the flop now or call flop and raise turn....

I'm very interested in your answers.

Bye,
Ivar

[strategery]

I'm a noob thinking aloud here so I hope some more experienced posters will correct me if I'm wrong. I believe this play is most commonly used when you have a marginal equity edge on the flop, but the turn will drastically change the equity of your hand. You don't want the pot to get too large when the value of your hand will probably change a lot on the next street so you wait for a safe turn card to raise.

[secretprankster]

strategery's hit on one of the main reasons. Another is for mixing it up with a very strong hand, e.g. if someone checkraises you on the flop and you have AA. You don't want to always 3-bet immediately but you don't always want to call and raise the turn because people will pick up on it (though some still won't, lol).

[yourface]

it's mostly about metagame and opponent tendencies for me

the most common example would be that if I've been peeling and folding recently I will be more likely to wait for the turn to raise

mix it up yo

[Absolution]

In your example I would call the flop and raise just about any card on the turn because I expect that to make more money than raising on the flop.

That's all you need to know. If waiting for the turn will let you exploit a bigger equity edge then you should do that. The question is really too broad. Generally though:
<ul type="square"> [*] If your equity is questionable on the flop, but will become clearer on the turn, you should wait for the turn.[*] People are less likely to trust you on the flop because, obviously, it costs less to mess around. So, if raising the flop with a good hand will get you more action than taking the stronger line of waiting for the turn, then you should just go ahead and raise there.[*] Generally, if it's multiway and you have people trapped between you and a bettor, you should just raise now for value, unless the first point comes into play.[*] If you know you have the best hand on the flop, but the pot is big, you might wait for the turn to raise and attempt to protect your hand against draws that can profitably call 2 on the flop, but not on the turn (and even if they do call on the turn they are making a fundamental mistake so you win more either way.)[*] Similarly, if the pot is big and you can protect your hand on the flop with a raise, then just go ahead and try and win now.[/list]
I can't list every reason why you might wait. There are others like slowplaying, free showdown raises, etc...

[detruncate]

[ QUOTE ]
it's mostly about metagame and opponent tendencies for me

the most common example would be that if I've been peeling and folding recently I will be more likely to wait for the turn to raise

mix it up yo

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. And this becomes more important as your opponents get better at exploiting your tendencies.

The most striking thing for me about Stox's play is how balanced everything is. For example, he waits for the turn a lot in a whole bunch of different situations. His range therefore includes lots of semibluffs + fsd raising, which makes folding more difficult... strong hands, which discourages light 3-betting to counter all the semibluffing + fsd raises... and single pair hands that will also bet the river for value or happily call a donk. You're never sure where you stand and it's very easy to make mistakes. Say what you will about his style, his turn play in particular seems awfully impressive to me. Especially in the context of his overall game.

Now add in some metagame stuff here. We're going to be donked into quite a bit since we're usually the last pf aggressor. Sometimes we're going to have to fold. Sometimes we're strong enough to raise. But pretty often we conclude we probably have enough outs to peel intending to fold the turn UI. So (assuming we don't adjust) Villain is close to correct if he bets every single flop and turn against us and folds hands likely to be drawing thin to a raise.

Waiting for the turn allows him to draw out sometimes, but we also collect a BB from a lot of bluffs by way of recompense + get a lot of calldowns from worse pairs even after we raise the turn. We obviously prefer dryish boards unless the intention is to wait for a safe turn card on a drawy flop.

Sometimes it's better to just raise the flop (like when Villain will put in a whole bunch of bets since you "always wait for the turn with your strong hands," for instance), but the point is that it's rarely correct to always do one or the other if the decision is close. You don't want to give up a lot of equity just to mix it up, but you don't play hands in a vacuum either. So, my humble advice is to spare a thought for your opponent + what has been happening lately as Mr. yourface suggests before deciding how to play these sorts of hands.

[Absolution]

Does Stox theory even apply to the games this forum is directed at though? There shouldn't be a reason to be in a tough game at 5/10 and below. Don't bother balancing if you don't have to.

[detruncate]

[ QUOTE ]
Does Stox theory even apply to the games this forum is directed at though? There shouldn't be a reason to be in a tough game at 5/10 and below. Don't bother balancing if you don't have to.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we're actually agreeing for the most part.

I ascribe to the philosophy championed by ILP and others of not giving up equity to try to make yourself "less exploitable", but when faced with a relatively close decision I'd opt for mixing it up for the simple reason that I think it helps me extract more value.

Moderately aggressive lags (not maniacs) often pay closer attention than some people give them credit for. As they say, "to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." When you only have one tool, you get pretty good at applying it broadly. And they're the guys you're going to have to make the most difficult decisions against on a routine basis.

If he seems to donk a lot and then go to war on the flop with most anything, obviously you want to raise a lot of flops with decent hands. But if he's going to keep taking shots and find reasonably good folds I'm happy to draw him deeper into the hand as often as possible. And I'm also happy when he's less confident about when I'm actually weak, since that's going to be the case way more often than the opposite.

Stox obviously adapts his game to the opponents he finds himself up against and does very well in small stakes games, so it's less a theoretical case than just taking the example of a strong player with a coherent overall strategy that can be broadly applied. He knows how to adjust to specific opponents/game conditions since he knows how everything in his game fits together. I should be so lucky.

[Gurravasa]

Interesting and good thread. I think the importance of who we're up against isn't pointed out strong enough thou. How agressive and SD-bound he is are very important inputs when deciding where to c/r. Do you trust him to bet turn? How likely is he to wanna take this to SD?

Combining all the stuff we talked about in this thread and then deciding how to extract the most value with them is a skill that can not be teached like a simple formula. It's something that needs to be trained and for some it's easier to decide than for others and thats called talent.

[stoxtrader]

In position, it is a very difficult decision, and close - I don't want to spend too much time writing, but with v good draws, mixing it up between the two is probably fine, though maybe jamming flops vs showdown monkeys and raising turns vs tight players slightly best.

OOP, tend to jam flops...but there are exceptions. This is a big tough question but *mostly* getting it "wrong" is not a huge mistake with v good draws (more than 9 outs). 9 or less outs and things get a bit more important because the turn can get v expensive.