I always understood a valuebet as a bet where you have >50% equity vs. V’s continuing range.

But isn’t this only true when the pot is empty (i.e. no dead money)?

eg. if you have 30% equity, you can actually make a 3/4 pot bet, no? If V calls and you win at showdown, you not only win the amount $ he called, but also the dead money in the pot.
L = 0.7 x 75 = 52,5
W = 0.3 x (100 + 75) = 52,5

Is this what they call a ‘thin valuebet’, because you can’t put an unlimited amount $ in the pot?

Suppose we're in position on the river.

We bet $75 into $100 and villain calls, and we only win 30% of the time when he calls.
Our EV when villain calls is (0.3 * 175)-(0.7 * 75) = 52.5-52.5 = 0

Since the EV is zero, there's not much reason to make the bet. (Although there is also some EV coming from villain's folds. )

If we check back, however, we probably win something like 40% of the time or more (since we also beat his check-folding range). If we pick up up the pot 40% of the time when we check back, the EV of our check back is $40.

In this example, checking back clearly has a higher EV ($40) than betting and getting called (EV of $0). Ergo, we should check back if we don't beat 50% of his calling range, because checking has a higher EV.

A "thin" value bet would be something that only wins 50-55% or so when called (so it wins when called the majority of the time, but still loses fairly often), as opposed to a "fat" value bet that wins much more often when called.

P.S. I don't really want to over-complicate this, but when we're OOP, it's sometimes appropriate to make a "blocking bet" even if it wins less than 50% of the time when called. This is because it prevents villain checking back some hands that we could get value from, while also preventing him from betting a polarized range that we can't profitably call against. When we're in position, however, and can check back to realize our EV, we only want to bet value hands that win 50% of the time when called, and we balance those with our bluffs (which don't win very often by checking back).

You are making this too difficult. Think of it this way 'For every additional dollar I put into the pot, what is my return on that dollar if called?' At 50% EV, your return on a dollar bet is a dollar. at 40% ev, your return on every dollar bet is $.8, so you reduce your EV for every dollar.

What your calculations in your original post are figuring out is, considering the dead money, what is the most I can bet with less that 50% EV and still have a positive EV. That isn't the right question. The right question should always be 'What action can I take that will provide me the highest possible EV'?

A thin value bet is unrelated to this. A thin value bet is betting for value with a wider range. This usually done when both players are playing merged ranges (this is a whole different topic and quite the rabbit hole) and you think your opponent is playing a wide range of value hands, and that your hand is slightly above his hand range. For example, if you are in a game where a lot players have been bluffing, a smart player might start playing wide, and showing down with hands like middle pair. You adapt to this and decide to start playing wide as well, so you start going to showdown, betting for value all the way, with hands like middle pair or TPNK, hands you would usually not play for value. That would be considered a thin value bet.

Alright, great answers. Thank you both!

Next time you're closing river action with an OK hand and thinking of checking it back, look at the board+action that led you here, and ask yourself if there are any hands that you beat that will call a small bet. if so, try sticking 1/3> pot in and see what happens. You'll get a lot of sigh calls and pick up Xtra value. In fact , you could go so far as to say you're BETting for VALUE.. some sort of... Value BET

I think generally it's associated with a small semi-thin bet, which is actually incredible powerful not just for value, but also OOP for blocking a large polarized stab, as previously mentioned

Okay, I'm thinking out loud now:

Can this idea be applied to light c-betting (where we expect to have some fold equity)?

For example; this is my strategy for light c-betting at the moment (@ 2NL);

I ask myself the following:
- How many % of turns increase my equity? (eg. complete my flush draw, draw to a flush draw, hit a relevant overcard, ...).
- If this percentage exceeds the amount I need to make a bet, bet.

To make it concrete: if 30% of all turns increase my equity, I can bet my standard size of 2/3 (on a wet board), or even 3/4 (when I'm ooP).
If you add some fold equity to it, I recon this to be +EV.

This strategy keeps me from c-betting too light at the micro's. Also, vs. big stations, I tend to be more conservative, because of the lack of fold equity.

Do you think this strategy is viable?

as i think a previous poster may have been suggesting, there are some terms being muddled here. I guess, technically, any bet with a hand thats +ev is "for value" but thats not what people are talking about when they say "value bet"

Your ideas of taking combinations of hands possible and using that to decide when / how much to bet is on the right path,however, its not on a hand by hand basis, its on a range v range basis. You should research combinatorics.

villain opens, i 3bet, the flop comes A 7 2. Assess the combos of hands i have in my example 8% 3betting range (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, ajo+ A2s+)

how many hands do i have that smash this flop?
6 combos of pocket aces, 48 combos of a2s+ 36 combos of ajo+

of my original 8% 3betting range, 85% of it flopped at least top pair.

now do the same thing for villains calling range, you'll find that of his whatever~15% calling range, the vast majority of it misses this flop.
This is a large part of what is dictating your cbet frequency and sizing. You do the same thing on the turn, and on the river. There is no way you're doing this in real time for every flop, range, runout, and stack sizing - esp when multi-tabling. You can and should do off the table work and play around with variables and board textures, and pick up on patterns.

what you were suggesting doing, is, essentially solving a hand one street at a time in a vacuum using only one part of the puzzle. this is at not only the cost of big picture overall strategy / range / balance, but, at the cost of future streets/ other factors in play in the hand itself; such as reads, setting up profitable jams, the fact that you should be calculating vs a range not a known hand, table image, etc.

This thread has been insanely useful in only a day.

Combinatorics is on my to-do list and as you put it, it seems like it's gonna be literally game-changing.

One step at a time!

You're on the right lines, but you don't need to do any precise maths. I'd actually recommend switching to a smaller c-bet sizing, so that you can c-bet more of your range without having to worry too much about the maths.
I'm routinely c-betting 1/3 of pot in position (except when I have a good reason to do otherwise), and if villain calls, I'll size up on the turn with combos I want to bet (because they have robust equity and I think I have some fold equity), but give up and lose the "minimum" with no-hopers.

e.g. In BTN vs BB, I'll usually bet 1/3pot on a board like Kh 9s 6d, and then I'll go bigger on the turn with hands like QT, JT, 87, along with many hands that pick up a BDFD, but give up with hands that didn't pick up any outs. There's no need for me to bet two thirds pot on the flop with any of those hands if a smaller bet gets the same job done (makes villain fold his air).
If you rigidly use the "old fashioned" strat of betting "75% of pot on wet boards", it's only really TPTK+ and draws with 8+ outs that really work for that size against contemporary opponents. (e.g. You don't want to c-bet 75% of pot with ATs on K96, if villain check-raises and makes you fold. That's a 75% of pot bet you just fired into the abyss.)
When you have a fairly weak draw (or a one pair hand that doesn't want to play for stacks), it's usually preferable to bet small with it, such that you set yourself a cheap price, and don't end up getting "committed".

I have been experimenting a bit with c-betting 1/3pot but haven't yet implemented in my game plan. I will definitely look into that.
Thanks!

You can even bet 1/4 pot on exceptionally dry boards. This allows you to pretty much c-bet these flops with your entire range. You'd be surprised how often this works and how +EV it is in the long run.

Keep in mind that theoretically you will need to have some hands capable of calling a x/r when you do that.

So if villains range consists of 10 hands, one that is the 3rd nuts and 9 that are the nuts, we should bet the second nuts and see what happens?

LOL, im gonna be good here 1/10 times. thus, i will bet 1/10th pot and have an easy fold if i ever get reraised. the 10% of time i am good and get called instaprofit.

in all seriousness, though, IIRC hes playing 10nl, definitely plenty of stations who get to the river with less than 9/10 nuts and will call. im mainly talking about vs stations who will give a crying call with MP. i dont think theres a need to have a polarized 1 bet sizing here, do you?