After reading this post I'm not sure if you fully understand what thin value means.

It is generally used to describe light value bets, for example betting 2nd pair or worse. Or betting a hand like aq without a pair and getting called by a worse A also without a pair.

The other way it is often used is more about choosing sizings to target weaker parts of villain range and still get calls, as opposed to Hero's range.

A set is not light given how unlikely villain is to have flush or straight. Like I said before, river is only a sizing decision, Hero should always bet based on the action so far.

I never thought of it as betting a hand that was moderate strength in absolute terms. I always thought of thin value as betting a hand that is moderate strength relative to all the better hands which are possible, regardless of how likely they are. When we bet those moderate strength hands, we're targeting hands that are even weaker.

Betting 2nd pair or worse for value might be something we do when all the draws brick out. 2nd or 3rd pair might be good, and we might get called by worse. It's not something we'd do very often when all the draws get there, even when it doesn't seem like either opponent was on a draw, simply because it's less likely our bet will get called by worse.

In this hand, hero (or possibly V) could have a flush, a straight, KK, QQ, JJ, 88 and a lot of 2P. His set isn't the top of his range, by any means. If he bets here, he could be value-owning himself against something V is slow playing, but otherwise he's hoping V will call with a worse hand, very few of which may actually call, because of how wet the board is.

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No. To me a good definition of thin value means you're betting a hand where you expect that your opponent will call with a range that your hand is in the middle of, but you expect to be good more than 50% of the time--just not much more.

In this instance the reason we might be concerned that betting a set is "thin" is because it's hard to imagine Villain calling with a range that we beat. Not that Villain will often have us beat--just that he will fold so often that his calling range narrows to a range that we are behind. Villain probably has a lot of QT/JT type hands that we don't expect to call. Villain could have KT or KdXd for one pair that we beat, and that's not too many hands.

But the combos of flushes and straights are also not many hands! We'd expect to hear from a straight before the river, and the flush that got there is a backdoor flush which can't contain a K, J, or 8 as a hole card. So we are looking at maybe 3 combos of flushes? Total? And some of those flushes might jam the river instead of checking, so we have to really de-weight those.

This is why we have to bet. We are beat SO seldom that missing value from top pair and maybe 2 pair is quite bad.

You left out an important part of the definition of thin value. We have to be good slightly more than 50% of the time, when we get called.

Here, I'm not expecting V to call very often at all. When we get called, I'd expect V to have some oddly slow-played better hand almost as often as I'd expect V to call with 1P or 2P.

We may not be beat very often here, but we're also not getting called very often here. So, we bet small, to ensure that V can call with some worse hands, rather than betting large, which would ensure we'd only get called by better. Our small bet sizing is part of what makes the value bet thin.

It's thin because we're targeting weak hands on a board that makes a lot of strong hands possible. Of the few times our bet gets called, we'll still lose some of those times, when our opponent shows up with an unexpectedly strong hand. But we expect to be good here more often than not, when our opponent does call.

See above. You're arguing with something I wasn't saying, and you're also saying something that is not true.

You said: "small bet sizing is part of what makes the value thin." That's not true. Small value bets can be for fat value, and large bets can be thin. It just depends on the spot.

Here I'm thinking we should bet large for thin value.

As you said, we won't get called often. But we don't have to get called often to make a big bet worthwhile.

One of the keys to me that you are ignoring (at least in your last post, maybe you mentioned it earlier) is that if we bet small and Villain was slowplaying a better hand, we're likely to see a raise. If we call it, we just put in our whole stack when we aren't good, but a small bet lets Villain off the hook when we are good. And as I think we both agree, we aren't going to get called by worse too much of the time, so allowing our whole stack to go in only when we lose is bad.

That's a sort of reverse-freeroll situation that I want to avoid. I don't think bet/calling small is good here. So the question is whether we can bet/fold. And I really don't like that idea. I'm not good enough to be able to smell when my opponent has some weird 2 pair (K5dd maybe?) that he's accidentally bluffing with, as opposed to a backdoor flush. So if I am betting at all, I'm jamming.

You make a good point.

My preference for a small bet here is based on my read that this V has 2P at best, or a slow plaayed monster at worst. I thought of it as a thin value bet simply because our hand isn't very strong compared to the better hands which are possible, but extremely strong compared to the hands we're targeting for value.

If instead we think V might try to bluff-catch, sure, we might as well bet bigger, or just jam. But in that scenario, on this boat, I wouldn't expect V to call very often, possibly not often enough for the big bet to be +EV.

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I count *at most* 7 combos of hands that make sense for V to have that we are behind: AQhh, QThh, Q9hh, AThh, ATdd, T9hh, T9dd. (I assume we hear from all other straights on the turn.)

If you really think V folds to a jam with all but 6 or fewer combos of other hands, then you probably found a really good bluff spot.

I'm honestly unclear what point you're making here.

I said in post 4 that I'd bet the river small, for thin value, because I didn't think V gets to the river with a better hand than ours the way he did, and then checks to us again. I expanded on that in post 7, and then some more in post 20.

Someone else said this wouldn't be a thin value bet. You seem to agree that it isn't thin, or that my definition is wrong.

So, I started searching "what is a thin value bet in poker", and came up with a half a dozen different definitions. That in and of itself would seem enough to demonstrate there's not a consensus definition, rendering the debate a matter of differing opinions.

I honestly don't care if we call the bet "thin value" or "thick value" or some other kind of value. It's obviously a value bet. I think it's thin because we're pretty close to the bottom of our value range here, and we're targeting a super-narrow range of worse hands that we're hoping will call, while hoping V isn't slow-playing a monster (which we all agree seems unlikely).

I said we should bet small, so that those weaker hands can call. Otherwise, all we're getting called by is better hands, or V is just folding, and we get no value at all.

Targeting a narrow range of weaker 1P/2P hands when we have the 12th nuts (or whatever 88 would be here) seems like "thin" value to me, but if that's not your personal definition, and you want to say it's "thick" value, so be it. Call it thick value if you want.

Our decision to bet or not, and what size to take, doesn't need to be classified as "thin" or "thick", in order for us to simply bet (small) for value here. I care more about making the bet than what we actually call the bet.

The point I’m making here is that if V calls a jam with 8 or more combos of hands we beat, a jam is +EV compared to a check. And 8 is not that many.

If we bet/call small then we need to get called by many more combos to make up for the reverse freeroll of calling it off to a better hand.