Hey Guys,

One of my major weaknesses is finding ways of protecting my top-pair big-pot hands by raising the turn. Far too frequently I raise flop and am "stuck" with just betting the turn. Assuming (I generally do) that those hands prefer for most opponents to fold, I wonder what circumstances i should be raising turn with.

A couple of instances of this:

Hero defends with A9 suited in big blind from a loose raiser in SB and 3 more limpers. Flop is 974r. sb bets, hero raises (?) or waits for turn? what turns do you raise, if you do wait for them? (as it happened, no one folded but the bettor, and then we had to deal with 4 callers through to the river)

hero with A8c limps from Button (yes, people want this to be raised - that's a different kettle of beans) with 4 other loose passive limpers. Flop comes 84h2. utg bets, extremely loose player raises, hero (in my retrospective opinion foolishly) 3-bets?

Third instance, which I am actually happy with, but I'm curious what y'all have to say:
hero AK ep, 4 way 5-bet cap (one happy table, that one was). Flop KT6, ep bets, all call. Turn 9, ep bets, hero raises, only ep calls. I wonder if any of you guys makes the case for raising flop? To me, the pot was too huge to skip over the chance for a turn raise.

Thank you for your time!

stop being results oriented. often you lose the pot regardless of what you do, because other players are in the pot too trying to make their hand (and they don't fold for any number of bets). by focusing on winning pots instead of winning money, you are costing yourself a bunch. not raising strong (equity advantage) hands multiway on the flop is incorrect. the focus on protection instead of value is incorrect. the idea that a hand is not played correctly unless you 'tarp em on the turn' is also incorrect.

a) I am not results oriented, at least not in terms of winning pots (the result I would like is a lot of folds on the turn to my vulnerable hand, which is worth more, I believe, than the decreased value).
b) Just to clarify, I am not trying to trap - on the contrary, I am trying to get people out, not in... and I'm not talking about general poker maxims, either (wanting to raise turns in general, let's say) but rather protecting vulnerable hands.
c) Do you never use a strategy for protection, at the expense of a little value? if a person with 2 overs who has 12 percent of a 10 bb pot folds because of a raise, we win more from his fold than we would have from his calling a turn bet from us when we raise flop, no?

also, how strong is our equity edge in that situation against two overs and a backdoor on the flop?

99% of the time, protection and value are the same thing in multiway pots. If you never sacrificed value for protection, you'd be making at most a small mistake.

The fundamental defect in SS opponents' games is calling too much. So what if you get to the river 5 ways with TPTK? The 40% of the time you're good more than makes up for the times you're not.

I understand that you want folds on the turn - that's protection. That's about winning pots (knocking out opponents) instead of winning money (getting max value).

for c) you have to look at all of the players - not just one

when you say in your original post that for the A9 hand "we had to deal with 4 callers through to the river," this is a fine result. Lots of people put in lots of money when you had tptk mw. This is a winning longterm strategy for you (more winning than calling flop raising turn).

A8s is a fine raise preflop after lots of limpers, and it's a great opportunity to 3bet on the flop for value and you actually do get some protection here since you're facing a lot of the field with 3 bets. You're doing fine range- and equity-wise vs a donker and a loose guy's raise. Why would you say your 3bet was foolish?

AK flop you often have the best hand multiway in a huge pot. it looks like you had the chance to raise an EP bet, so you'd be getting a bit of protection there in facing the field with two bets, plus obviously value.

it seems like you're more worried about getting your opponents to make mistakes, and as a result you are making mistakes.

Delay the raise for turn in heads up pots. Multiway, OTF, put as much money in there as possible.

There is a section in the SSHE book about when to wait to raise the turn to protect a vulnerable hand, and I think it does have a place in a good player's game. Tough to know exactly when that should be though. In the games I play now it doesn't come into play much because most hands I'm playing are ones I have raised preflop, and most people check to the raiser, so I don't get the opportunity to raise either flop or turn.

When I think my pot share is greater than the cost of shoveling money into the pot as fast as possible, then I shovel money into the pot as fast as possible.

That said, there are times when my pot share isn't so great, yet raising for protection is clearly correct imo:

one limper, nitty tag button raises, small blind calls, I call 44 in the big blind, limper calls.

255r

small blind checks, I check, limper checks, button bets, small blind folds, I raise, limper folds, button calls.

Now, I don't think that I'm ahead of the button's range after he bets into three opponents, but raising can buy me a bit of equity by folding out the limpers overcard hands and getting it heads up. Notice that nowhere in the hand did I sacrifice value for this protection. The opportunity simply presented itself and I took advantage.

Ha, this isn't a bug in your play, its a feature of lhe.

This opinion has been expressed by others as well, but I would recommend ripping the protection chapter out of SSHE and not reading it. It causes more leaks than it plugs for most readers.

why?

it's explained in earlier posts in the thread!

Because when it's multiway, the best time for getting the most money in the pot is on the flop, when people still have a chance with their weak draws. When it's heads up, the best time for getting the most money in the pot is on the turn, when the bet doubles.

Heads up and out of position I think it's important to check raise the flop a lot with strong hands and bluffs, but heads up in position on a dry board is a good time to wait for the turn to raise. I'd raise the flop heads up in position with my strong hands and bluffs on a wet board, but many would disagree that it's a good strategy. I have my reasons though.

I would agree in general however Ed did do a video that furthers the concept and which I feel is beneficial in its clarification of the chapter in SSHE


it can be found at

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnz...hand_videogame

Yes. But isn't the point of the 'Two Overpair Hands' chapter about maximizing the return on that 40% of the time you're good ?

Trading some equity on the flop to get it back and more on the turn ?

In the example in the book you're getting two big bets in instead of two small bets. Which means when you're still ahead on the turn you win twice as much and when you're not you save a small bet.

It may be impossible for a novice to execute in a real game situation but the concept seems pretty good to me. It gets you thinking in the right direction.

Also....it has nothing to do with protection at all. Right ? It's all about value.

Mr. Elephant,

This video will aid you greatly in your quest to play a normal value based game. Please pay special attention to the 3:17 mark when Ed Miller astutely declares, "When you raise, you take money from them and you give it to yourself. So, that increases your expectation for the play and therefore protects your hand."

Good luck.

IF I induce 3 opponents to fold 5 outs each on the flop in a pot that will be 12 BB how much have I gained if the remaining player's resulting EV is 60%?

protection is inducing a player or several players to fold their equity in the pot in an effort to divide the resulting gain between you and another contending hand. or folding hand or hands that collectively had (or will have) the odds to call with.

simply change the description "protection" to the description "Bluffing as a means to make your opponent to fold a hand incorrectly". So basically the death of "protection" is basically one of semantics.

Easy Game 3rd edition Adaptations A. Seidman chapter 2 Killing reason #3 Pages 11-16 addresses and clarifies the Idea of Capitalization of dead money.

I clicked on the Ed Miller link; nothing happened.