I call and evaluate the turn. You're in position and have the nut flush draw. If he has pocket 44's or 22's, good game. When you call, you're making a very strong statement about your hand and I don't think an average thinking opponent will be thrilled about shoveling a lot more money in this pot unless they have a monster and when they don't have a monster, you might be able to take it away if your flush DOESN'T get there. Not to mention he could have any random 55-TT which means you could have more equity if an ace or jack hits. Plus a 3 or 5 gives you an additional draw to a str8.
I think raising his bet is a bad play because aside from air, which you beat with ace high and your draws, you'd be hard pressed to get an average villain to fold anything and now you're inflating the pot more and may have to make a bigger bluff later to win it. His raise PROBABLY means "I have an awful hand, please go away, you" or "I have a hand that I want to get more money in and can definitely beat ace high ... let's do this" - either way, raising the flop doesn't help with any of that range. Once you see another card AND evaluate his action, you'll be able to maximize your effort by either:
- Checking behind if he's weak and you hit to induce a bluff on the river
- OR if he's weak and you miss to bluff and take it down
- OR you think he's still strong and can crunch the pot/implied odds of continuing if he bets or check behind if you think he's lying in wait
- OR you think he's still strong and you hit and want to extract even more money with a raise/call
If you DO choose to re-raise, it's your job to calculate your fold equity and size the bet accordingly. If you raise to the size of the pot, he'll need to fold 33% of the time or MORE to be a profitable play - original pot plus your pot bet equals 2 TO his 1 bet of the original size of the pot. 2 to 1 is 33%. I personally don't think your fold equity is that high on average which is why I advocate calling and I tend to shy away from bluffs against unknowns. And, don't forget that a semi-bluff IS still a bluff and you STILL need fold equity to make it profitable against hands that are beating you and you WANT to fold.
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