Quote:
Originally Posted by BigSkip
The times when we "know" that a worse hand cannot call are quite rare, and trying to break protection into a 3rd category (ie: 3. Protection: A protection bet is a bet made with the intention of getting an opponent to fold correctly) is where I have an issue. Thinking of protecting our equity as a subcategory of betting for value seems more correct to me.
OK, now I think I see what's going on. We don't disagree that much. There are 3 things I'd say to this.
First, a wording error on my part in the OP. I clearly misused the word "intention".
In my head, when I'm evaluating a bet (pseudo-)mathematically to see whether it was good or not, what the bettor consciously intended the bet to do is actually incidental. (Like, for example, I once raised a flop lead with an overpair for what I thought was value and the guy folded two pair face-up. My bet worked as a bluff even though I had no idea it was going to.)
What I'm really looking for when I evaluate a bet is not what the bettor wanted to happen, but
where the EV actually comes from.
So it's probably more accurate to say that protection is a third
source of EV that is different from value or bluffing.
If I were to re-make all the definitions this way, they'd look like this:
1. A value bet generates EV from our opponents calling (or raising) incorrectly.
2. A bluff generates EV from our opponents folding incorrectly.
3. A protection bet generates EV from our opponents folding correctly.
This also allows for the fact that one bet can have components of value/bluff/protection all generating EV at different times.
The issue you have can then be re-phrased as the belief some players have that protection against live draws is more desirable than value against live draws. That is debatable (and I'd agree with you that it's wrong), but you can't have that debate unless you acknowledge that protection is a different way of generating EV than value is.
Second, and this is a small point, the idea that "value is always better than protection" is demonstrably wrong. I did demonstrate it with an example in the OP--in the last example of Section 2, we're in a multiway pot with the best hand and it is more +EV for us to knock out a third player who is correct to fold than it is to get it in 3 ways. These situations are rare, but they absolutely do exist and, at least to me, show that thinking of protection as a subcategory of value is over-simplifying the concept.
Third, and I guess this just builds on the second point, I used to agree with you that protection was really just a close cousin of value. But now I don't. Sometimes it acts like a poor man's value bet, but other times it acts like a poor man's bluff. Here's an example.
Let's say you raise preflop in MP with KQo and the button, an aggressive player, calls. You're heads-up to a flop, and it totally misses you--A85rb. What are you doing here? And if you c-bet, why are you doing it?
If we had AK here instead of KQ, we'd almost certainly want to bet. That bet would have a value component--we can hope to get called by a worse Ax or 76 or get floated--and a protection component as well, if Villain folds a hand like 97.
But when we have KQ instead, we might also want to bet. But would that bet really have a value component? Is there anything we really want to get called by when we have KQ? Even if Villain floats us with trash like T9, are we putting more money in or are we going to let ourselves get bluffed?
So with AK our bet might give us value or protection. But with KQ, our bet could work as a bluff--if a hand like 66 or 44 folds--or it could give us protection against a hand like KJ or T9 (if he decides not to float).
Whether we think we are value betting, or we think we are bluffing, each bet could have a protection component to it. That's why I don't think protection is just a subset of value. It's in a weird nether region that isn't really either one of them.