hi,
the general consensus is that there is no betting for protection i think.
let's assume we have bottom pair and know our opponent has nothing but two overcards to our pair.
now let's further assume he will never bluff with air and won't call if he doesn't hit. in this case we should surely make a bet, but for what reason? the only reason is that we want to fold out a weaker hand which has outs against our pair.

i always try to base my betting on some intention. this train of thought fails when i have a weak bottom pair in position and try to figure out if a "bet for protection" is appropriate:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $50(BB) Replayer
($1,700)
Hero ($1,300)

Dealt to Hero K 4

Hero raises to $100, calls $50

FLOP ($200) 4 6 Q

checks, Hero ?

What are you protecting?

maybe this makes it too theoretical but let's assume i know he has JT.
i bet to make him fold because i know he won't bluff if he doesn't hit so if i checkdown i win 75% of the time. if i bet i win the same amount but 100% of the time.

if this is too theoretical i wanna know when and why i should be betting in this spot.

I hate the concept betting for protection. It's either valuebetting or bluffing. There's no protection if you got no hand, which makes it a bluff.

You valuebet because you have a hand stronger than opponent's range to continue is, or you bluff because you can steal equity from him with weaker hand than their range

If you bet and get him to fold if he has some equity against your hand, isn't that betting for protection?

Depends what you are betting with? If we are really going to discuss this thing, it can get long and deep

You have the idea of protection a little backwards IMO.

Say there's a flush draw out, and you bet to protect against it.

You're not betting to make them fold. Yeah, they have equity against your hand, but you really want them to call while you have the best hand, ideally without getting the right odds to do so.

Yeah I guess the protection comes as a result of value betting or bluffing. Doesn't really make sense just betting for protection.

I think the wording of "betting for protection" just leads us down a path of thinking that isn't as good as the wording "betting for value."

We can have AA preflop and open shove to protect our hand and villains will fold 90% of the time or w/e. Sure, we protected our hand, but we got very little value.

Protecting a hand isn't really a goal in poker, making money, ie value from a hand is.

I think an example that comes up frequently is charging drawing hands. You're not betting Top Pair on a 2 flush board to protect from a flush draw. You're betting to get value from the flush draw. Your goal in betting isn't so much to get the flush draw to fold and protect your hand, it's to get the villain to put money in the pot with a worse hand than yours. You want him to pay more money into the pot than he is getting odds on to draw.

I used to be completely on the "value bet or bluff" bandwagon btw, but I've come around a little bit after talking to players whose opinions I really respect about hands.

On the river, it is true that you're always value betting or bluffing, but on earlier streets, there can be other reasons to bet.

For example, sometimes you have a vulnerable hand that is almost always best, but that can't really get value from much, and it can be worth betting simply to make the hand easier to play, or betting it to just take the pot down right there in situations where your opponent is never going to put another chip in the pot unless he catches one of his 3-6 outs.

what do you think about this specific example? what i want to do as well is of course getting a call from overcards. but if i cannot make them call, i am perfectly fine with making them fold although i have the best hand.

let's say i have top pair and know my opponent is on a draw and he will not call a raise. i will still raise to make him fold his flush draw, gaining his equity in the pot. what reason would i have to flat if i knew he wouldn't bluff the river with busted draws?
but what i actually did was raise out a worse hand, which is from the discussions in this forum a bad result. we want to make worse hands call or better hands fold.
i disagree in this particular case.

also my initial question of when to bet this particular hand is still open and i would appreciate an answer. thank you in advance.

edit: i am pretty much trying to get at what TNixon is saying.

As TNixon posted about thinking bets either as valuebet or bluff, I'm in that boat. However, I'd add only one exception to that, the semibluff. Either with drawing hands that have much greater equity than pure bluff, or making a semibluff by merging your range.

Your bet w K4o is a semibluff, not valuebet, not bluff. Not very much worse hands call, but you have some outs, and you don't want to play weak hands weakly, and strong hands strongly, because even dumb players get that, so you merge your range sometimes. Getting the initiative can make the hand easier to play and plus the other advantages you may get by betting.

In this specific example, you don't mind getting a call from overcards, but you really don't mind if they fold, either.

For a lot of villains, there's a really gigantic part of their range that has 2 overcards to your 4, but that will never call a bet unless they hit, and that won't bluff often enough for calling down with bottom pair to be profitable.

Take a hand like T7 for example. This is a hand that will get called preflop a lot, but that more passive villains will never try to bluff with when they miss, even though they probably should.

Getting this type of villain to fold hands like T7 (or J5, or any number of hands that have absolutely nothing on a flop like this) on the flop isn't a horrible result, even though you're not really value betting or bluffing against that part of their range, because you're never going to get them to put a chip in the pot unless they beat you.

I am in the camp that you are always betting for value. ALWAYS! You are always striving to pick the play that gives you best long term investment for your personal risk tolerance. A lot of you will think I am being cagey, and my post is useless, and if you think that, you are completely right in your world and I can't defend my post.

But let me ask you this, if you bet here, and it's the most profitable play, does it matter what you call the bet? or how you categorize it?

This epitomizes the 2+2 community's inability to grasp the concept of betting for protection. Let's say there's a flush draw out after the turn, you have bottom pair in position and have been checked to, and you know for a fact that each of the following statements is true:

1. If you bet small enough to give your opponent the right odds to call with, say, a flush draw and an overcard, he will call 100% of the time.

2. If you check behind, your opponent will not bluff at the pot when he misses.

3. If you bet large enough to give your opponent incorrect odds to call, he will fold 100% of the time.

TNixon's post implies that you should bet here, but that it's not essential to give your opponent incorrect odds to call. (He states that "ideally" our opponent doesn't have the odds to call.) This is incorrect. Given the above three true statements, your only play is to bet large enough to give your opponent incorrect odds to call, even though he will fold 100% of the time.

Let's say that the pot is 100 and we're fairly deep, and we believe the three statements above to be true. The EV of checking the hand down is about .75(100) ~= 75. The EV of betting, say, 25 into 100, is .75(125) - .25(25) ~= 93. The EV of betting 100 is 100. The point is that until you are giving your opponent incorrect odds to call, this EV calculation will always just tell you that the chips in the pot already are worth more than giving a cheap card.

Although I definitely agree with your overall sentiment, if you bet here and it is the most profitable play (and it certainly can be against a fairly wide range of opponents), that doesn't mean it's a value-bet in the traditional sense, even though it may get you the most long-term "value".

Fwiw, MasterLJ, who afaik was a prominent source of the "a bet should always be for value or as a bluff" meme in posts he quite a while ago, has since said that really only applies on the river, and that there can be reasons to bet flops and turns that have nothing to do with either. He certainly isn't the only source of that idea, but I do remember his posts on the topic being a fairly big influence on me at the time.

But sometimes "making the hand easier to play" just really is a good enough reason.

I think you've made an incorrect assumption about why I said "ideally".

The reason I used that word is that sometimes you have a hand that's strong enough that your opponent has very strong implied odds, so sometimes even if you're not giving your opponent the correct direct odds to call, you are actually giving him good overall odds. Obviously villain doesn't know when that's the case, but you can't really be sure what he's going to call with either.

It all gets pretty hairy, and even bets that are primarily intended to charge draws have to serve more than one purpose, because villain obviously has more hands in his range than just draws.

So yes, if your primary intention is to charge draws, then you should always bet enough that they don't have the correct odds to call (and a lot of the time, they will call anyway), but implied odds muddy the water enough that this isn't always possible, because you're betting against a range, not a specific hand.

Obviously, if you know for sure that the three statements you gave are true, then yes, your conclusions hold, although you have to add a fourth statement, that "villain always has a draw".

So I don't think it's really as cut-and-dried as you're trying to make it out to be.

I'll admit, it would really be an easy game if you could always see your opponent's cards though.

Also, what I really said was that you *want* them to call, without getting the correct odds to do so.

If they're going to fold 100% of the time when they're not getting the right odds, and never bluff when they miss, and you can see their cards, then yes, betting is still correct. This is identical to the situation I already talked about where villain has T7 on the board in the initial post. If they're not going to put another chip into the pot unless they hit, then it is correct to bet even though you never get any additional value, and you never bluff out better hands.

But the real reason you're betting is to give them the opportunity to make a mistake, and call without the correct odds. And you *want* them to make that mistake. That's where profit comes from.

Overall though, I guess I just don't understand why you would point out a 2+2 community (which presumably you include me in) "inability to understand betting for protection", and then say basically the exact same thing I said, only using a different example.

If it were min bet holdthem yes. He would be making a mistake by folding JT on the flop.

Oh, jump off a ****ing bridge. My point stands.

nou

Lol. Yes, your point stands.

But you gave an example exactly identical to my T7 example, saying pretty much exactly what I said, although you were certainly more absolute about it, because I never wrote anything that assumed we knew *exactly* what villain would have.

While claiming "we just don't understand".

So yeah, you'll have to forgive me if I don't really get where you're coming from.

I just read your above post and we basically agree. And FWIW, a bet can have different purposes against different parts of the villain's range, so the fact that I used an example in which we knew the villain's exact holding was irrelevant. A bet that would be for protection if you knew what the villain had is still a protection bet against part of the villain's range, assuming that his range includes the hand that you assumed he held.

a poster of the german 2+2 community used the term " betting to realize equity" for those kind of spots.
You will only take down the pot, if you are ahead anyway, but you dont want to get caught in a guessing game on the follownpg streets.
you basicly bet because this will be the best spot realize youre equity in the pot.

how can the bet with k4 in given situation be a semibluff.
a semibibluf targets the weak made hands and tries to fold them out and still has decent equity against the stronger hands in villians range imo.
dont tell me are trying to fold out a six and to catch a out against a queen, the situation is quiet the opposite imo.

This thread illustrates a lot of issues you guys seem to be having. I wasn't going to post again in this thread, but after talking with TNixon, he encouraged me to do so... I will repost my main point that everything you do is for value. You are always betting for value even if it is a bluff. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but if you use traditional terminology, you are going to play traditional poker.

If you are saying, I am vbeting here, I am bluffing here, I am semibluffing here, then you are stuck with standard lines and reasoning(and that is not always bad). Once you get to a certain point, however, it's so much easier to just ask, is there (the most) value in this bet?

You start asking more intelligent/detailed questions, like if I bet this amount, is there value? yes. Why? Because he calls with {XY} range. Or Yes, Because he gives up this much equity (in the case of a bluff).

All these terms used in poker were created by poker dinosaurs, and they tend to make players think far too linearly about the game IMO. They are also used to teach players who have little to no understanding of poker. It's kinda like learning about atoms in high school compared to learning about them in quantum mechanics. It's not completely 'wrong' or useless, but it's not the most accurate model.

Take something as basic as bluffing. What are you doing really? You are making a bet, that will cause an opponent to give up his equity in the hand. It needs to be successful a certain % of the time in order for it to be profitable. When you break it down, you are just betting on how often you think he folds. Instead of betting on how often you think your hand holds up against his. In both cases, it's still a bet, there is still a % that you win, and in the end it all comes down to if the bet is most profitable.

This might seem to unnecessarily complicate things (and it's why I hesitate to post it), but when you get into situations that are more complicated, you need to be free of terms.

Think about semibluffing as an example. Your most basic thinking player will think, "ooo I have a draw, I am going to semibluff". If you asked them, they might even be able to tell you the pros semibluffing, and why it's a good play. But they aren't thinking about it during the hand.

For me, if I have a draw, I would be thinking, "ok, I have about this much equity if he calls, I can probably squeeze him for this much if I hit, if these scare cards come, I will bet and he will fold this much, ect. ect. ect." The term 'semi bluffing' isn't even a term I have thought of in a long time, and I play everyday.

You guys are taking something someone said to get people to start thinking about the game, and misapply it and trying to categorize everything. In the OP example, he set the hand up in such a way that betting is most EV provided his reads are accurate and you can call it protection, semibluff, or Stuey G for all I care. In the end, it's always for value.

I hope this doesn't confuse too many people, and if it does, or you don't find my post useful, you are best off just ignoring it. I think most would have a hard time disagreeing that everything you do is to make the most money (which is my point, and may seem extremely evasive), so I don't think I have too much to defend.