If after Fourth Street you hold four to a straight with the center connection in the pocket, the other players may not pick up on your strength. You look around the table and see that all eight of your outs are live. There are a total of 39 unseen cards (with a seven-player table and three players folding). There is about a 20% chance of closing the straight on the next card, and a bit better than 41% chance of catching a good card in the next two, and a really favorable shot at closing on the straight by the River.

But... Two considerations must enter into your tactical thinking:

First, if you close the straight, will you win the hand? This can only be answered by looking at the other players' cards and observing their betting behavior. If a normally tight player is re-raising as if his pants were on fire, discretion might be more recommendable than valor, unless you think he is making a mistake in how he perceives his own hand. Obviously, as more cards are revealed, there is less speculation and more confidence in the diagnosis of the strength of the opposition.

Second, does the pot justify taking a 20% risk on this round? It is possible, though unlikely, that four players stayed in the game with draw hands or bluffs, and everyone is playing slow, perhaps raising the bring-in to a full bet and calling all around. There may be only 2½ bets in the pot when your turn comes. If you call and the bring-in calls, then there will be four bets in the pot, one of which is yours. That's 3:1 betting odds, less than the amount that makes sense to draw to a straight on Fifth Street. But 3:1 is much richer than your odds for drawing one of eight cards in any one of three more streets. With everyone slow-playing, the pot odds probably will not improve unless and until someone hits on a draw hand.

A different tactic might be to raise on Fourth Street. This might chase away everybody, or maybe it will just shoo away the bring-in. This is financially unjustifiable, as the pot odds do not warrant a raise going into a straight draw, and the result will be to scare people away from the pot, not push them towards it. You might wind up stealing the antes and maybe a couple of bets at most. A bit depends on what is showing on your door and Fourth Street. A plausible high pair or trips might help this maneuver; otherwise, everyone will focus on what is showing and probably guess that you're drawing to a straight or a flush. You might as well draw your hole cards on your forehead with magic marker.

Now, suppose instead that one or two players are aggressively raising with cards that represent pairs or possible trips. Maybe someone has two pair. Their draw to a full house by the River is half as likely as your draw to a straight (assuming all outs are live). The pot odds may clearly warrant a call, and possibly even a raise out of your four-to-a-double-outside-straight. The raise tactic is still dangerous, as it will surely give away your hand (assuming no distracting high card possibilities). Perhaps the best move is to let the gamecocks fight it out on the way to Fifth Street, humbly calling their bets, enjoying the good pot odds, and hoping to pounce in the next betting round or two.