Is this true to say?

You are never playing bad poker if you get your money in while you are ahead - whether you are a 53% favorite or 99% favorite. I'm not saying always shoving or raising with these stats, however if your money is going in the middle you're playing it right. Everything after that is just variance.

True as far as it goes BUT .. if you're a fav every single time you get it in, you're not getting it in often enough.

imo

No. There are a bunch of situations (mostly having to do with tournaments) where getting it, even while ahead, is not the correct play.

A good example of what CMAR is talking about: Blinds are 300/600, you have around 16,000 and you open to 1500 with 44 from the CO. The SB, who barely has you covered, 3bets to 6000. You 4bet all in and he calls with AKo. While you got your money in as a favorite here, it was still a bad decision. The SB 3bet to an amount that should make it clear he is committed to calling a shove, and 44 is going to do poorly against his overall range.

So a couple points here:

- You play against ranges, not specific hands. That you happened to get lucky and villain is at the botom of his range doesn't mean you played it well (Freewill's example).

- Sometimes whether you are ahead or not isn't the full story. In tournaments, ICM and cEV is more important than straight up EV and equity. There are a number of situations involving satellites, bubbles and payout increases that have a huge impact on correct play. (ie; bubble of a satellite that pays out a trip to the WSOP to the top 50 finishers. 51 players left, short stack has 1bb, second shortest stack has 3bb, third smallest is 5bb. You have the second largest stack in the tounament. The big stack in the tournament open-shoves preflop. You fold AA).

Your last point is why it's hard for me to embrace tournament poker.

Okay, I understand. Completely forgot about tournament situations as you mentioned. That changes everything.

Cash game. You have a strong draw and due to board texture and game dynamic feel that a check-raise shove will take it down the majority of the time. Vil calls with a set and takes it down. You still played the hand correctly even though in this instance vil was ahead when you got it in.

Is this actually the correct move even though the odds are against you? I think this just depends on how gamble-y you are as a player.

in cash games, as the masters of the forum have thaught me, even if you're ahead just 1%, it's a profitable play...

but as you can see, everything can change in tournaments...

It is the correct move because the odds are against you only if the villain doesn't fold (and with a strong draw against a set, the odds are not that bad against you). Remember, we expect him to fold plenty of hands that are technically ahead of us for the moment. It's called fold equity, the expectation we have from the percentage of the time that we make our opponent fold.

Yes because denks is saying most of the time you get him to fold (say 70%), then 30% of the time he has a set and you still have good equity. Just because in this instance he has a set doesn't mean he always has a set.

River- The other side of that coin would be getting it in behind and it being the correct play. Correct? Such as.....You have a 10 to 1 chip lead heads-up and call an all-in with a range thats behind your opponent.

Right. You're introducing a new aspect to the scenario - fold equity. I'm aware of what it is but did not incorporate it into ahead/behind +/- equity process. What I was referring is both opponents(or more) going to show down.

There are situations where you will have only 40% equity and putting money in the pot will be profitable.

Good point. So if OP wants to limit this exclusively to river decisions and nothing else:
We are on the river. Vil shoves with an approx pot sized bet. Here if we have only 40% chance of winning getting 2:1 on our call it would be good poker to call.

true... I think at multy way pot, ie.