Hi guys. I have a question about the concept of pot control.
I've read about it but wasn't fully convinced. Why shouldn't I bet with a bigger than 50% favorite hand on a "scary" board? I can understand the concept when applied in tournament where you're fighting against the variance and part of your EV consists of the time you last in the tourney, but in a cash game with no risk aversion - the concept seems unconvincing to me. I understand that one shouldn't bet when no worse hand will call but as you understand my question is about the situations where I know that I'm good on more than 50% of the calling range.
Thoughts? Examples?

What exactly was said about pot control implying not to bet when you are a 50%+ favorite with a scary board?

The 50%+ equity includes the fact that the board is scary (assuming it is a reasonably good estimate). Therefore, you want to bet an amount that incentivizes villain to bet and the bet amount should be such that he doesn’t have proper pot odds, so with a call he will be making a mistake.

If you are way ahead, say with the absolute nuts, then I can see a check if it unlikely villain will call any amount, hoping that villain will improve so you get his money on the next street – but that is not pot control in my opinion.

Against passive players there is no need to pot control. As long as you have more than 50% equity when called you're good to go. The thing is that by betting so wide for value you leave yourself open to get bluffraised by a player that understands that a lot of your hands aren't good enough to stand much more heat, you need to protect yourself from people being able to do this to you to prevent bet/folding like 80% of your range.

Originally my doubt arose when I read the mantra "Big pot for big hands, small pots for small hands" in Ed Miller's "NLH Theory and practice". It says "Good players keep the pot small when they are vulnerable, and they build it big when they have the edge". Well, I understand the need to advise a cautious attitude for a beginner reader but is there more to that? What's wrong with betting big a slim 51% edge (assume no rake) on villain's calling range with a second pair on flop and turn against a flush draw when I know I'll check back river and the opponent is straight forward?
Maybe I miss some math part about these future streets or it's other situations the concept applicable...

*NOTE: please don't discuss my assumptions, I have simplified the situation in order to stay on the math part discussion only. Thanks!

Did you read my post at all?

Consider how all your ranges look.

CLIFFNOTES: You are more likely to encounter pot control situations when facing competent aggro thinking players when eff stacks are deep

One component to pot control is your villain's competency and tendencies.

You then merge this with the fundamental poker concept of "big hand big pot small hand small pot".

I think one of the mistakes beginners make is they tend to think of poker in strict binary terms. Either they have the best hand or they don't. If they think they have the best hand then they want to stack off or will stack off. If they don't think they have the best hand then they tend to fold.

However, the above simplistic approach will be death if you are deeper than 200bb and facing a competent aggressive villain.

Against certain villains, medium strength hands can turn into Reverse Implied Odds hands.

Give you an example. Lets say me and villain have history, he is aggressive and a thinking player with a well balanced range and he knows all about balancing, merging, and other higher order poker concepts. Eff stacks are 400bb, game is 2/5nl.

V limps in MP, 4 limpers when action gets to me in the BB. I have JJ and raise to $35, V calls, heads up.

Flop(90) 8 6 3
I lead out $60, V calls.

Turn(210) 5
Hero???

A lot of beginners in this spot would feel good with JJ. I mean, it's an overpair right? Also, since most beginners are usually used to playing between 40bb - 75bb deep, by this point they just can't wait to shove all-in with their overpair especially when there are two draws on the board.

However, for a thinking player, this is a nightmare spot with JJ OOP against a competent thinking player when we both are 400bb deep. If V was set mining odds are around 20% he binked. V has a ton of SCs in his range and the board texture on turn has all sorts of pair + straight and pair + FD combos. Then there is the matter V can range us for 2 over cards and feel that with proper aggression he can fold us out.

So, we are in a position where V can balance PERFECTLY against us. If we bet this turn and V raises us, we go from an SPR of 9 to an SPR of around 3 which makes a river shove by V extremely +EV because his range and line with a turn raise and river shove will be super strong while simultaneously "looking like a bluff". He will have all kinds of equity on the turn and about 1/2 the deck will suck for us on the river giving him serious fold equity against us. To make matters worse, he can extract serious value out of our JJ with all kinds of hands that hit or can hit. On the flip side, we can EASILY overplay our JJ in this spot by being too aggressive. Doyle Brunson has a famous saying about how he hates AA, he says, "AA wins the small pots and loses the big ones..."

this is that exact scenario unless.....

we pot control.

We need to check back a street in this spot and the turn is the best street to check back.

We can check back turn, reevaluate river and most likely c/c river. V likewise can/will often check back hands that he may have been willing to semibluff raise with but instead will take the draw.

but but but... what about the river? What about extracting value? What about charging our villains for their draws?

Well, it is villain specific. Against weak tight fit-n-fold players or your typical ABC rec fish, sure, we can bet/fold against those types of villains all day enabling us to maximize our value. We can charge them for draws, etc.

However, those lines aren't optimal against a competent thinking aggro when deep because the potential for falling into a RIO trap is huge.

There is nothing more disgusting than having JJ+ in this spot, blasting the pot on the turn to "charge the draws" and then V blasts us back with a raise. So we go from a $210 pot to a $800+ pot and now have $1500-ish behind. Come river, V shoves and now we are in that "why so much" leveling process wondering if V is bluffing or trying to make his hand look like a bluff. Not to mention 50% of the time we hate the river card... And even if V doesn't shove but merely pots it, now we are looking at an $800 bet which is more than 1/2 or remaining stack.

So we start this hand $2k deep and now if we lose we drop to under $800...

However, if we would have pot controlled, we don't fall into the trap of overplaying our hand. ANyways, I'm starting to rant and repeat myself, hope this explains a bit some of the thought behind why we may encounter a situation where pot controlling is the way to go...

Your posts are continuously some of the best, dgi.

Lately, I've been trying more pot control and it seems to suit my personality better.

I prefer to induce bluffs rather than to be the aggressor.

It's not always the most positive EV though. I like pot control in sit n gos. It's not as effective in cash games.

I'd go back and forth between different styles of play and see what gets you the most money. You also don't want to be too readable.

What does it mean that V can balance PERFECTLY against us? Does it mean that if we think in terms of ABC poker then we "have" to fold? Or is it that against his move our EV is zero? For some reason I think "perfectly balanced" is 0 EV against me if I know that villain is balanced... I mean if I know he will act this way with his close to entire flop calling range - I'll just calculate my equity against this range and continue in the hand accordingly (sort of a "perfect knowledge assumption")..

FWIW I think you should stop talking about balance ITT because it's pretty clear that people have incredibly fumbled understandings of what it is and it's not going to help OP that much in this context. Its relevance here FWIW is protecting particular ranges well enough such that we can call down enough, and also preventing villain from exploitatively betting huge against us even where we do call down unexploitably.

Dont know what stakes you play? But balance is only important on the higher stakes. On the micro stakes most people play pretty straight forward.

This is more or less what I mean. If you look at V's entire range of hands in the spot I identified, that range of hands will have X% of hands the crush us, Y% of hands that have significant equity against us, and Z% of hands that are bluffs.

If X = 100% of his range, then we would always be correct in bet/folding, so against these villains (weak tight, fit-n-fold, passive, ABC type players) we can always bet/fold them or we can always fold when they raise us.

If X = 55% and Y = 45% then again, we can always bet/fold vs these types of players because our JJ will not have enough equity to continue against this range

If X = 45% and Y = 30% and Z = 25% now we are in trouble. Against this total range our EV is more or less 0 in this spot. However, due to the pressure V applies, if we bet turn and he blasts us with a raise, he has now created significant fold equity for himself and our JJ will be hard pressed to play this spot correctly. If we call and are up against X we are crushed. If we call and are up against Y we may be flipping equity wise however with the fold equity V generates for himself by shoving river this spot is profitable for him so -EV for us longterm. If we call and are up against Z then obviously we win, but again, the fold equity V generates when he shoves river against us still gives him a certain percentage of wins against us. So when we add all these scenarios up: X + Y + Z our total EV can work out to about 0 which is what i mean when I say V can perfectly balance against us if we bet this turn and fail to pot control.

Note: I qualify this entire line of reasoning by stating that V is a "competent aggro THINKING player". I also try to provide the conditions for when this applies, namely when Hero and Villain are really deep.

I'm just trying to be precise in explaining a situation where one would pot control. Hopefully, OP and any lurkers will start to form a conceptual understanding of just how, when, where this may apply.

It is true that we often don't have to worry about balance at the lower limits, however, the above concepts can still apply in atypical situations, particularly situations where we find ourselves 400bb deep vs a competent villain.

Yes, absolutely which is why I tried to qualify my lines of reasoning and provide the conditions for "one" example where pot control is key. I define a competent aggro thinking player and Hero and Villain are both really deep.

The more examples you read about pot controlling and the more pot controlling concepts you internalize, the more it will become intuitive for when, where, how we should pot control which was the title of this thread.

Otherwise, what good is it for me to reply, "Hey, don't worry about pot control at lower limits..." how helpful would that comment be.

But again, I want to stress how important it is for us to have a decent profile on our villains as well as have an understanding of how important eff stack sizes are vs our equity vs the pot size.

There's nothing wrong with that.
The "problem" is that with the majority of your range, you won't be ahead more than 50% of the time when called if you bet multiple streets.

e.g. If you triple barrel with one pair, villain is usually only calling the river if he can beat one pair.

Pot-controlling means villain's range will stay wide, such that you will win more than 50% of showdowns.
That's not to say that bet-bet-check is a bad line. It's fine, and for some spots it's optimal. Pot-controlling generally means you check at least one street. Whether it's the flop, turn or river depends on the situation.

I kind of disagree. I don't think you're supposed to pot control to get enough hands to call our valuebets, if he is indeed folding out anything under two pair then we print money by triple barreling almost every hand. Also, if you aren't ahead more than 50% when called, it's a bluff and that is ok too because it gives equity just as fine as valuebetting. The point is that when you valuebet every single time you have >50% equity on the times that he doesn't fold, you're betting for very thin value and that makes it very easy to call/call/raise every single time with napkins. If you're checking because yoú're afraid he isn't going to pay off with worse then you could write down your own range and his and see what he'll be folding if he doesn't call with second pair for example and conclude that you're not bluffing enough.