Zach6668
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006, 9:36 PM
QUOTE (Flack_attack @ Wednesday, April 12th, 2006, 1:19 AM)

kindly explain
Well, raising for information all by itself is generally a spew.
There are a couple legitimate reasons why we should raise. We can raise for value, when we have the best hand. We can raise to protect our hand. We can raise to clean up outs, etc.
If you really think about it, what information are you getting when you "raise for information"? If you get 3-bet, you are beat, and then what? You fold. You spend 2 BB to find out you are beat. You could spend 2 BB and get to showdown to find out you are beat, and have a 0% chance of folding a winner.
What happens when you raise and he just calls with a weak 5, or a stronger top pair? Then the information that you receive from this is what? That you are ahead? So you bet the river, and get called by a better hand a lot of the time, while a worse hand will fold, most of the time. So you spend 3 BB to lose on the river, essentially.
Basically, it's just difficult to justify a raise on information purposes alone. I know where you are coming from though. I used to think like that, but it's just not the proper mindset. You should have a better idea about why you are raising when you do raise.
Btw, there can be an argument made for raising the turn here, and that would be the free showdown raise. That is raising in position, when we have outs when we are behind, but potentially ahead. Basically, if we don't improve, we can check behind and get to showdown for the same price as calling down, or, when we do improve, we can gain another bet out of the villain. I don't like that play in this hand, because I think we are getting 3-bet too much, unless the villain is super passive, which he is here, so maybe it would be good, I'm torn on that one...
Anyways, I suck at explaining stuff, so I hope this made sense.
- Zach