Playing Draws Optimally Multiway

[Talking Poker]

I missed this thread when I was out of town - great stuff.

First, to address the question about what to do with multiple opponents left to act behind you - the more people behind me, the more likely I am to just call. We want them in the pot when we are drawing. It builds a bigger pot for us when we hit, and of course it makes it much more likely someone will pay us off. If one of them raises, so be it, we can figure out how to react depending on the action following them before it gets back to us.

Quick and dirty: With a nut draw, multiple opponents is a good thing.

As for what to do in the situation described (with only 1 player left behind us), I think you MUST raise AND must just call in this spot. I think if you always call with a draw here and always raise with a set, that's bad. I know it feels dirty smooth calling here with a flopped set, but we MUST do this at least some of the time - even if it's only like 10 or 20%. Sure, it sucks when we have a set and a draw completed on the turn, but it's a GREAT feeling when the draw doesn't get there, there is action in front of us, our hand is somewhat disguised (because good players raise on scary flops with big hands, right?) AND the chances of our opponents making their draws are much lower now than when there were two cards left to come.

The percents you use are up to you, of course, but all I'm saying is you can't play like this:

Draw - Call 100%, Raise 0%
Set - Call 0%, Raise 100%

I think something like this will be MUCH better for your game:

Draw - Call 70%, Raise 30%
Set - Call 20%, Raise 80%