In part 4 of poker tracker article by Excession, it talks about the basics of NLHE on a .25/.50 table. At the end of the 4th bullet point it talks about if you are checked to in late position and you flopped a draw that you should bet half to 3/4ths of the pot as a semi bluff.

I dont understand this, why would you want to bet potential callers out of the pot, when you could check and hit your card that completes your draw and hope some one was either was slow playin or hit something themselves.

Please help.

1. Showing aggression pays. When they can't be sure if you have a strong hand, you'll get paid more when you do.
2. It diguises your hand. If you check with the nut flush draw, and then hit, you probably won't get paid off, whereas if you bet it, you're more likely to. Especially if someone else is on the flush draw.
3. You give yourself more ways to win. You may take the pot down right there, or on a later street even if your draw doesn't hit.
4. You may get a free card, if you decide you want it.

Thanks pretty thorough I appreciate it.

Just remember I'm just talking about one style of suggested ABC play here (it happens to be mine more or less) and on tables where the opposition pays very little attention to your play.

There will be circumstances where it's absolutely not the right thing to do (e.g you are up against a very aggressive player who has just checked (warning flag for a slowplay or limp -reraise if ever there was one) or if you are going to get yourself in the position of trying to bluff a calling station (in the latter case you might consider a small value bet (1/5th the pot or so)).

Also if you bet half the pot on the flop, get called and miss, you can usually take a free card on the river making the half pot bet about right for value anyway.


Also a lot of folks on party will chase any draw. If you represent some sort of holding you can often take down the pot on the river when checked to if the draws miss (they are less likely to try to bluff you out if they put you on a real holding)

So the only thing you are really worried about is a re-raise and most re-raisers at Party won't re-raise enough. They will typically still give you the correct odds to call their re-raise (especailly once you factor in implied odds).