Hi, been watching training videos and trying to get my head around what are the best protection bets and why...

The example chosen was as follows

UTG opens, Hero MP 3bets, UTG calls, everyone else folds

Hero holds 88

Flop: AK6r

Utg checks

Now, in the example we’re told to bet 88 at 33% pot most of the time. Now in the past I would of just thought oh well there’s an A and a K and that hits the UTG pretty hard so I must fold, but watching this makes me see things differently, he didn’t 4bet us so we can take AA or KK or AK from his range, now we’re left with a lot of KQ, KJ, QJ, J10 combos so my real question is what are the best hands to protection bet in terms of all of our range? Would below be correct?

77-99 - These become good protection bets as we unblock all those straight draw type hands for UTG’s range
TT - I’m unsure what to do with this hand here after UTG checks, probably bet at 33% pot?
JJ-QQ, KQ - now we’re blocking the draw type hands so these should be a check? Holding these cards here make it more likely villain has an A or a K
KK + AA were obviously betting here 100% of the time but probably around 50% pot?

Now I’ve typed this up pretty quick as to how I understood the video, can anyone tell me if this logic is either correct or just completely wrong. Hope this all makes sense

Edit: I know villain may have more hands in his range but I’ve just used a few examples to simplify things

Another pretty big factor here is that when we have a hand like QQ, if a J or T comes on the turn for example and villain hits a pair, our QQ will still be ahead. On the other hand if we have 77 or 88 in the same spot, we're now behind (say villain has JTs for example).

I don't think we should be getting AA here 100% of the time, and when we do bet our good hands we shouldn't be using a different size than when we bet our bad hands. We can't just bet 77-TT for 33% and then AA, KK, AK, AQ, etc for 50% of the pot...that's not really how it works (at least vs a decent opponent) because a perceptive villain can crush us for doing that.

I'm not actually sure if we should protection bet these pairs all the time in this spot, but regardless I hope this post clarifies the concepts.

Thanks for the reply, yeah good point about the bet sizings, makes sense lol

So what would you do with JJ and TT then?

And also what would be your next move be if we have 88 and villian calls our flop bet, assuming 2 bricks come is this just a hand we’d like to get to showdown so just try check the whole way or call a small river bet?

A hand like 88 makes more sense to bet than QQ or JJ in that spot, because if 88 is currently ahead, letting villain see a free turn card will often mean 88 is no longer ahead. But if QQ is ahead on the flop, it's still likely to be ahead on the turn.

Hence 88 "requires" more protection (from overcards) than QQ/JJ.

e.g. If villain has a hand like JT, and you have 88 on AK6, you go from being ahead on the flop to way behind if the turn comes a Q, J or T, and then you'd need to bink a 2-outer to win. Ergo, you can bet to "protect" yourself from villain realizing his equity for free.

If villain has JT and you have QQ, the only way villain can take the lead on the turn is if one of the two remaining queens come (unlikely), and even then you'd have redraw with 10 outs to a boat or quads. So QQ doesn't need any protection from overcards. When the A and K are already on the flop, no more overcards can come.

So if our range contains QQ-77, I'd be somewhat likely to bet 88/77 (since they are most vulnerable), very unlikely to bet QQ/JJ (not vulnerable), and with TT/99 I'd probably bet at a low/mixed frequency, as they are somewhere in the middle.

Thank you arty for your reply, it definitely makes more sense now than before I started this post anyways! I’m sure I’ll get there eventually lol