Quote Originally Posted by Irisheyes
Firstly, I call those pushes all day long with weak hands. They are obvious semi-bluffs.
Obvious to you .. but this is a weakness in my game still.. however I think I'm getting better at catching those.

Second, I feel you could have recieved results for your "experiments" for free if you payed proper attention to the hands going on when your not in them. I don't think it's wise to pay for the info you gained. They sound suspiciously like fishy "just to see" bets. I think you know all this already though, I just wanted to say it.
Indeed I know this. If I can get the info from other people showing down, I'm not gonna donk call to "see it for myself again". But these two instances where I called em down, were when I wasn't getting to see the actual hand to this betting pattern. I believe the first instance was a table where people folded easily, and a guy strongly bet a flop with 3 diamonds. I had pegged the guy as a typical thinking player. Here I was wondering if this would mean he actually had the 2 diamonds, or that he didn't and just wanted to push off draws with something like TP, or yet again "overbet" a flush draw, trying to use the scare-factor of the flop. It'd seem not too wise to bet too strong when you have em on a fold-heavy table, so I wanted to know. (He ended up having it) The other case I don't remember exactly, but it was similar in that I wasn't going to see what hand this betting pattern represented easily, so I called it down for the learning experience.


3x his raise PF. Minraises are shit.
I have to respectfully disagree here. I think either is fine here because basically there is no pot yet. I had no read yet on how the table responds to heavy raises, so I decided to play it to the lower margin of my normal raise here.


No. Betting solely for info is -EV. If you bet the flop, the only hand that calls you is one that beats you so by definition that bet cannot have a positive expectation.
After reading all the replies here, I think you are right here. Without a proper read to tell me otherwise, the line I should have used here was check/call (a not-too-high raise) and then check/fold afterwards.

The only sidenote I have to make here is that anything more than a 1/2 pot bet would REALLY have pot committed me. So a bet *could* be justified on the grounds that I can then set the height of the raise, instead of letting my opponent do so. Here he bet $4.. but what if he best $6 or $7? I would have had to call those too right? So maybe a case *could* be made for going first, on the grounds that I make sure any betting done is weak.

Generally though, this doesn't matter and the first line is the better one I think, because I had position. He has to show his strength sooner or later because otherwise I'll just check behind him. If he would have had position on me, THAT would make the prospect of a bluff a bigger risk so like salsa said, there the "betting first"-line can be considered.

Hands which you can beat QQ/JJ/Bluff just fold. EV = 0

Hands which beat you raise (or call). EV = negative

So, where can the value for this bet come from?
The value comes from not being pushed off of a better hand later.. but I do agree that if I think about it now it looks to be on the whole -EV in this particular situation.


And eh, I think I pretty much got the answers I was looking for, so thanks everyone