Too general for you?  OK.  Here’s a specific example.

You’re in the five seat, three after the Big Blind.  There is a $2 and a $5 blind.  You have $300.  You’re dealt a pair of 9s.  The 3 and 4 seats fold.  You decide to raise by three times the Big Blind, making it $20 to go.  You get two callers: the 7 seat and the button.

The flop is Ah 7h 3s.  The 7 seat has $250.  The button has $100 left.  Neither are especially strong players, but they’re not idiots or newbies.  They’re moderately tight, occasionally aggressive with very strong hands, but not very tricky or creative.  We used to call them "ABC players."  They play pretty much by the book.

Do you bet?  If so, how much?

Here are some thoughts for you to consider before you answer.  You may well have the best hand with your pair of 9s.  Practically speaking, if anyone had Aces, Kings, Queens or Jacks, he probably would have raised you -- not definitely, of course.  One of these players, conventional though you might have pegged him, may have

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Have you figured out what you want to do yet?  Let me tell you what I do.  I usually make a continuation bet.

A continuation bet is a bet that continues your pre-flop aggression with a bet that is about half the size of the pot.  It is designed to knock people out who would otherwise check and see the Turn, but it costs you little enough so that you can get away from it if someone raises you and you estimate that they’re ahead of you.

The idea is to give yourself good pot odds by making the bet small and the potential winnings large as a percentage of your bet.  In this example, the pot is $52.  If you bet $25 then you only have to win a little less than one in three times to make a profit on it.

You make this bet when you aren’t too sure you are in the

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Compare this to a standard pot-sized bet on the Turn.  With that type of bet you need to succeed 50% of the time, either by getting your opponent to fold or by going forward and winning the hand.

Sometimes you can make a continuation bet from early position with a drawing hand -- as a semi-bluff.  You bet half the pot with some expectation that your opponents will fold, but with the added possibility of winning the hand if you hit your draw.  If, for example, you raised with AhJh in late position, and the button called you, and then the flop was Qh 7s 2h, you might make a stab at the pot with a $25 bet hoping your opponent would fold, but knowing that you would likely be far ahead if he called and the Turn was a heart or an Ace.  On the other hand, if he raised you then you’d have to suspect he had at least a strong pair of Queens and maybe a set, tossing your hand.

There are risks with a continuation bet, reasons you might consider checking instead.  Your more observant opponents might notice that you do make this bet after the flop routinely after you bet pre-flop, when you have a middling sort of hand or a draw.  If they do notice this then they will start re-raising you and getting you to throw away your hand even when they have nothing.  They’ll correctly interpret your small bet as a sign of weakness and steal your small bet.  You may also inadvertently get weak players to call when they would otherwise have folded for a larger bet.  That you don’t want to do.

There are clearly times when, after the flop, instead of making a continuation bet you will want to make a pot-sized bet.  Other times, instead of making a continuation bet you will want to check.  If the flop is very likely to have helped your opponents, don’t make any bet.  Here’s a specific example of that.  If you started with JJ and the flop is AKQ or even AQ2, don’t make that bet.  Just check and hope no one bets.  If they bet you’ll have to fold.  Similarly, if you really hit the flop or still have no reason to think that anyone was especially helped by the flop, go ahead and make your pot-sized bet.  If the flop, when you initially bet your Jacks, were T-6-3 for example, you should make a large bet -- being very confidant that no one has moved ahead of you.