worth betting the turn?

[BIGandRICH]

Ok, i felt like i was giving the guy with J4 a chance to suck out on me by not betting, but my hand wasnt exactly strong..

There's not alot of cash in the pot, but on the turn i'm feeling that my 88 is ahead.. the big blind most likely doesnt have anything, and a limp suggests pp/suited connectors. The risk would be in the limper being an Ax, or someone getting fancy and raising me. The river is an easy check as nothing is paying off my 8s if they are the better hand, and if i had bet and been called on the turn then i know my 8s are most likely behind, or anyone who tried to catch something is beating me or not calling.

So.. worth it? or am i reading too much into a nothing pot?

POKERSTARS GAME #2686236682: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.50/$1.00) - 2005/09/29 - 04:04:41 (ET)
Table 'Lycomedes IV' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: wowsaveit ($122.80 in chips)
Seat 2: erras ($84.10 in chips)
Seat 3: Ender666 ($102.50 in chips)
Seat 4: AK Troller ($50.45 in chips)
Seat 5: Scott Owen ($169.95 in chips)
Seat 6: Taterstot ($28.15 in chips)
Taterstot: posts small blind $0.50
wowsaveit: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Scott Owen [ ]
erras: folds
Ender666: calls $1
AK Troller: folds
Scott Owen: calls $1
Taterstot: calls $0.50
wowsaveit: checks
*** FLOP *** [:Tc: :Ah: :Ac:]
Taterstot: checks
wowsaveit: checks
Ender666: checks
Scott Owen: checks
*** TURN *** [Tc Ah Ac] []
Taterstot: folds
wowsaveit: checks
Ender666: checks
Scott Owen: checks
*** RIVER *** [Tc Ah Ac 5h] []
wowsaveit: checks
Ender666: checks
Scott Owen: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
wowsaveit: shows [Jd 4d] (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Ender666: shows [4s 4h] (two pair, Aces and Fives - lower kicker)
Scott Owen: shows [8c 8d] (two pair, Aces and Eights)
Scott Owen collected $3.80 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4 | Rake $0.20
Board [Tc Ah Ac 5h 5d]
Seat 1: wowsaveit (big blind) showed [Jd 4d] and lost with two pair, Aces and Fives
Seat 2: erras folded before Flop (didn't bet)

[PokerPatNEU]

I don't think it is worth betting the turn here. Either you're going to get everyone folding (your hand was best anyway if that happens, why make them fold), you're going to get called by someone slowplaying, or you're going to get called by a flush draw. The only bet that a decent player on a flush draw is going to call is a bet giving him approximately the right odds to call with...so the value of betting is basically none. With only 1 card to come, all but the fishiest of opponents are going to realize that their implied odds are slim for extracting money from you on the river, since if a club or heart falls you will have no problem getting out of the hand. So you would have to make a bet of roughly the right pot odds to justify their call...which is EV=0 for you basically, so no point in it. The only times you're really gonna get paid here is if another 8 falls on the river (hopefully the 8h since you're holding 8c ) and you can take money off someone with an ace or someone who just completed their flush. If you knew the guy was holding J4, it would be a different story...but since the hand is too passive for you to develop a read, it's really not worth it just because of the danger of someone slowplaying.

[dsaxton]

So you would have to make a bet of roughly the right pot odds to justify their call...which is EV=0 for you basically

This is wrong. Whenever you build the pot as a favorite in a hand, assuming you never fold, you expect to gain.

Think about it, whenever you're a statistical favorite to win the pot, then by definition you expect to win more than half the pot, the current size of which I'll call x. If you make a bet of size y and are called by an opponent on a draw, you expect to win more than half of a pot of size x + 2y, which has to be greater than y. So you risk y to win an amount greater than y, which has to net you a gain. Basically, you win back your bet plus a fraction of your opponents call, and your opponent is reimbursed by his pot equity. Of course, in terms of "expectation" this completely ignores the possibility that you could fold the winning hand on a later street (which obviously effects profitability), but this simpler analysis is still interesting, I think.

What you're saying also in a sense implies that it isn't profitable in a limit game to bet with the best hand when the pot is large and your opponent is on a draw, which is intuitively absurd.

I usually don't like thinking about poker in these terms, and don't really think an understanding of pure math offers any sort of an edge in a poker game, but these things are interesting to think about sometimes.

---

About the hand, I don't think it's worth betting. Basically, your bet only serves the purpose of avoiding giving a free card to drawing hands, when you aren't even very confident you have the best hand, when the pot is small, when there is almost no chance of getting called by a worse hand, and very little chance of forcing a better hand to fold. I think that combination of things makes checking the best play.

[BIGandRICH]

giving someone good odds to draw isnt 0/-EV...
take top pair vs flush draw on turn, top pair is 80/20 to win. any bet here is +EV.. a bet that gives me good odds gives him +EV.. but gives you +EV also, you still win the hand 80% of the time.

thanks for the advice on the hand, i was thinking that not betting was a better option, always good to check though

[PokerPatNEU]

If an opponent has a draw that he will hit 1/3 (2:1 against him making it) and you make a bet that gives him 2:1 odds to call, and you play that hand thousands of times, won't your net gain be zero? Doesn't that make your EV = 0? How can giving someone good odds to draw be +EV just because you're the favorite? In the long run you will lose money by making bets that give your opponents better odds than they need to draw. Do i misunderstand the concept of expected value? I have always been under the impression (wrongly it seems?) that Expectation was only relevent in the long term.