Quote Originally Posted by bode
raising to find out where you stand is a farse. The vast majority of the time you are folding out hands that you beat and only allowing hands that beat you to continue.
which is exactly what i want here. you name me one person with the post flop skills, at 25NL, to drag along hands they beat, but avoid hands that beat them...w/o raising for definition or info, and i'll begin to think this is a good idea with such a marginal hand in a raised pot.

if we held AK, i can see your point. but, here, i need more information. and, a call and wait for turn wont do it as strongly as the flop raise. do you all really think he is only leading the turn for $3.50? that was my raise amount because i thought his turn bet would be larger than that if i called. and, if i sense weakness on the turn, i HAVE to raise his lead to fold him out. that just bloats a horrible pot with a stupid hand to do it with...way too much beats me to be building a pot. as played, i raise the flop, and a passive like him drops his bluff...something he likely wont continue, so i can see betting if checked to on turn, but that probably costs more, too, than the flop raise. at least $4+.

and, drew, do tell about why you consider a river raise?

it was also suggested that his bluffs are fairly frequent...at least more than 10% of the time...and passive, too. i understand that, i do that all the time, myself. a good looking "value bet" works as a bluff out of a guy like me who only shows down great cards. its how i balance my river value bets. and, it needs to work less than half as often as a river overbet to stay profitable. but, his flop lead is not the time, nor the place for a bluff. it WAS a hand. i raised to see if he was willing to bet 55, or TT. surely, he drops that to a raise on the flop with the A up. and, the raise gets me a free look at the turn when he only calls it...giving me one more chance to cooler myself with the T...lol.

bottom line: its a SHITTY spot. a good "isolation" move that backfired, and changed the whole course of the hand's playability.

this game is a battle of mistakes. he who makes the SMALLER mistakes wins. and i believe i made the smallest mistake i could have made other than folding the flop outright. but, staying true to form, i raised anyway for the slightest chance he may have been truly donkbetting a weak pp. i cant win the hand w/o doing something...i just did it early, when cheapest. again...small mistakes w/o allowing them to grow into bigger ones.