REASONS TO BET
Before you take any action on a poker hand, have a reason.
Make a plan. There are generally two situations when you want to bet – one is when you have the probable best hand and the other is when you have a good draw.
These are situations where you’ll probably want to bet, but they aren’t the reason to bet.
The reason to bet involve the odds, either pot odds, bet odds, or implied odds, depending on the particular .
The Probable Best Hand
There is no universal way to determine the likelihood that you have the best hand.
For purposes of this discussion, we can just think of the top pair as the probable best hand.
Top pair is when one of the cards in your hand matches the highest card on the board.
Whenever you beat or raise with the best hand, you’re reducing the pot odds your opponent is getting.
For example, let’s say you have A 
A 
, and your opponent has K 
Q with a flop of K T 6 
.
Your opponent will likely bet, thinking he has the best hand.
Let’s say the pot has five bets in it before your opponent bets. Now, if you call, then your opponent is getting 6-1 odds to try to outdraw you.
The 6-1 comes from 5-1 on the pot odds and even money on your call of his bet.
If you raise, however, your opponent’s odds are cut from 6-1 down to 3.5-1 (or 7-2, five bets already in the pot plus your two bets, compared with the two bets he has to put in the pot).
The odds of him getting a King or a Queen on the next card to improve to a better hand than your pair of Aces are 8-1 (that’s rounded off a little-six of the forty-five unknown cards will improve his hand).
The astute reader might notice that I’m ignoring flush and straight possibilities.
I’m doing that for convenience only; although slight, those chances should be included in a complete analysis.
Whenever the money odds your opponent is getting are less than the odds he has of improving, he is losing money. That means you gain money.
You would profit in this situation if you only called.
His bet was a mistake and you profit from it, but you profit even more by raising because you have the best poker hand.
Although you do have the best hand, you’re raising because you profit from reducing your opponent’s money odds.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
