Quote Originally Posted by dsaxton
You're betting for value and to get people to fold
This makes no sense. How can you make a value bet into a pot where a player with any lowly pair will have the best hand by the river more than half the time?

Assuming your opponent will call your bet with certainty, you're actually doing nothing but diminishing your own expected return when you bet with a draw. You don't want your opponents to call you when you bet with a draw.

By just checking, maybe you're giving a guy in early position with 10-J a chance to draw his straight.
This is also sort of silly. You're suggesting that you protect your ace high hand in a multiway pot against a player who might have a straight draw?
headsup, it's -EV when you get called by while semibluffing. but making a small bet that you know will get called more than 2 people, you ensure profit because flush will come 35% of the time by river (hence nut-flush bettor's pot equity is 35%). just imagine difference between going allin with flushdraw in headsup and going allin with it vs 3 people. you gotta have pot equity higher than 25% in 4 way pot to ensure profit.

this is easy valuebet in limit, but I think it's not as clear cut in NL. if anything I'll make a small bet (1/3~1/2 size of pot). I may semibluff vs 2 people, but it's generally very wrong to semibluff into field greater than 2.