This post is kind of a question about betting/shoving for protection. it's not really a post about if my flop shove is +EV. I'm pretty sure my flop shove is +EV; I'm shoving 320ish into 240 and I think I'm causing enough folds for it to be +EV. I also have an A redraw and, always hilarious, non-nut backdoor hearts. Let's not forget the King-Jack draw. It's +EV. Done and done.

This is Vs a regular who isn't that good. He's about runs like 30/18/3bet% 6. 6% is not that much. I'm not sure how often 3 bets my isos... but whatever I called preflop. I isoed from the CO so I look somewhat stronger and that should make his 3 bet a bit stronger too. Still, I called preflop. The limper is a fish and I iso pretty wide here and I think the reg knows that. My questions:

1. Is shoving better than calling? I realize that if I shove I'm getting worse hands to fold and its only getting called by better but is that really that bad? The pot is already 240ish and I don't know how often villain is 2bl barreling to make an accurate call or fold on the turn so I just shipped. I think shipping here is +EV but I'm not sure if its more +EV than just call/call. Sometimes I think shoving is good even when you're only getting called by better when:

the money in the pot you win + the amount of the pot you're protecting is > the amount you lose when you're called by better and dont suck out + the amount you gain on the next street vs bluffs.

Sometimes "the amount you gain on the next street vs bluffs" may not be attainable if you fold the turn. Like if I flat flop here, I may get bluffed off on the turn or allow KJo to catch up and I lose the pot.

(Some rambling math I don't know how to work out: Assuming my AQ is good... villain has like 6 outs or like 14% per street or whatever. So since there's 240 in the pot, by shoving, I am protecting ~$33. I'm also kind of protecting against the times he has like 76, hits a 7 on the turn, shoves, and I call with my AQ and do not suck out on river. Moving on, assume I fold every turn except an A or Q, so I lose my flop call of $88 every time he bets the turn and I fold. The 14% of the time I do hit my A or Q on the turn and he ships (assuming I'm good), I win the remainder of his stack when he ships turn so that's .14*240ish. Now sometimes I have reverse odds on turn when I hit my A or Q because sometimes Villain has T9s or JTo or AK but whatever... I didn't take this into account because whatever.)

Anyway... if anybody can help me figure out why shoving flop is good, that'd be nice. I need to rectify my beliefs on why shoving flop is good even when it's only getting called by better with the fact that it is a shove that is only getting called by better. I may just need to figure out why betting/shoving for protection is good in some spots. I may just not understand why betting/shoving for protection is better than calling for value.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($1053.30)
Hero (MP) ($400)
Button ($94.50)
SB ($541)
BB ($471.90)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, Q
UTG calls $4, Hero bets $20, 1 fold, SB raises to $71, 2 folds, Hero calls $51

Flop: ($150) 10, 10, 7 (2 players)
SB bets $88, Hero raises to $329 (All-In),

Total pot: $326 | Rake: $3


Kind of an odd tidbit and something to think about, I'm turning AQo into a draw here, but it's also one that can be value-called on the flop and turn.

i dont like this at all. then again id snap call AK in villains spot bc i don't like folding

But it's +EV. Whether or not there are more +EV lines is the other question.

whether or not you'd snap call AK here is like in left field in terms of relevance to this post, unless you were reinforcing my comment that my shove is only getting better and folding out worse. I realize this. Why don't I just shove 67s? 67s does not = AQo here. AQo is a draw here, but also one that can be called for value.

so after you shove, villain is getting 150+(88*2)+(329-88)/(329-88)=567/241=2.35-1. So villain needs >= 29.8% equity to call here profitably. 6-outers need 25% to call profitably. Clearly if you had less behind, and his pot odds were better than 3-1 shoving is optimal (for protection). Also, while all worse will fold, there are better hands than may incorrectly fold, too. Perhaps they fold AK or AQ here or an underpair for example (idk really know, just speaking theoretically).

The EV of smooth calling the flop will depend turn tendencies. For example, if he's the type to give up on the turn and only shove with turned pairs, getting it in the flop is best. If, however, he's autoshoving the turn, but folding to the flop raise, clearly calling the flop to induce a turn shove is better since youre going to have $808 around 3/4 of the time ($606 in your stack on average) compared to the $567 you'll have by getting the fold on the flop. This becomes a much more complex problem if you were both a bit deeper, which I'm not sure I'd know how to simplify.

(this is all assuming you're ahead always, when in actuality you're sometimes not)

Betting only for protection (i.e. villain isn't going to call with anything worse) equals bluffing. Let's assume villain won't call with anything worse than AK in the example hand. Although shoving AQo could feel like protecting our hand, there is just as much value in 'protecting' 3h2h here.

But what if I'm called? AQo has much more equity than 32hh which makes it a better semi-bluff on the flop. However, AQo also is better than a lot of hands that bet the flop...

32hh has a flush draw and hence more equity. I'm not saying AQo is a bad hand to semibluff here, but there's no additional value in protecting it if nothing worse is calling. It's just a bluff as is shoving 32hh.

This is 100% wrong. Betting for protection is totally betting for value. The protection IS the value.

The thought process that "there are almost no hands that I beat that call my bet so I am bluffing," although intuitively logical, is wrong.

?

If i have a pair of aces but NEVER get called by worse than my aces = 3 high(disregarding card removal) which means you are bluffing.
So you are saying Im not bluffing with my 32o, Im protecting it.
lol?

Or you're betting for value while realizing worse is rarely going to call. Worse may not call but you still fold out all the 4 outers or 6 outers or however many outs he is going to fold that had a free chance to get there if we went check check or just flatted. (I'm obviously not speaking specifically about the hand in OP).

Oversimplified example: You have 88 and raise btn and bb calls with KQ. You can see villains cards. Flop comes T62 rainbow. Villain checks. If you bet, you're not bluffing but you're not getting called by a worse hand, but you're protecting from a K or Q peeling on the turn and river. Not saying that you have to bet or that betting is the most EV, but if you do bet then your bet is for value.

Obv this is super simplified and you don't know villain's exact hand, but the same concept applies when you assign a range that is not likely to call.

another way of saying it, yes.

bluff then

88 is no different from 83o here either. You bet w. the intention of getting villain to give up his equity to the pot. If villain folds KQo 100% of the time it makes absolutely no difference which hand you have. If he's calling even 1% of the time, betting with 88 is clearly a valuebet.

In most situations you can't bluff profitably with your entire range, and 'pure protection' bets like this become infobets.

Another example:

$1000 in the pot

PSB left, for some reason river bets are not allowed and you can only shove or check.

board 6h6s9h7s
villains range Ts9s,Th9h,AsAd,AsAh
your range: 66,KK,32o

checked to you, shoud you bet with KcKd?

Assuming villain plays GTO he will call you with 50% of his range i.e. with AA.

When you check back, you will win on average $265.

When you bet for protection, you'll win $1000 50% of the time and lose $833.5 the other 50%, totalling to +$68.25.

Only reason betting with KK is even +ev is that KK has two outs against villains calling range unlike the other hands we bluff with. If our entire bluffing range had let's say 4 outs against villains calling range (that happened still to be AsAd,AsAh), betting with would not only be suboptimal, it'd be -EV and hence worse than openfolding.

i think this is a pretty commonly misunderstood and misapplied concept

Protection only for the sake of protection equals bluffing. However, protection has a real meaning which becomes more apparent in a different example. Lets say you have 88 and has a widish range which you are ahead. Villain folds most of the worse hands when you bet and you get slightly less than 50% so we don't have valuebet there right? No, protection can tip this decision to bet. There is some value to get villain fold out the hands with slight equity.

I think the best definition of a bluff is when you do not want to get called after a bet.

Here you do not want to get called thus you are bluffing.


/thread.

alternative definition of a bluff is that a better hand folds.

thread.wake()

When your opponent raises to 99bbs preflop and you jam for 100 with aces, you want him to fold. You're not bluffing.

If you're so pot committed that you're calling a turnbet anyway, but on the turn villain will only shove hands better than yours but c/f worse unless he improves to better than yours, you might aswell shove flop, hence shoving AQ here for protection is entirely from bluffing or shoving 23 for protection.

I think I'd play it the same as OP.

Every bet in poker is for value. Value comes from:
a) opponent puting money in, when his pot equity is too low for a call or a raise (i.e. doesn't have enough pot odds)
b) opponent giving up his non zero equity

a is 'value' value and b is bluff value. Pure value bet is only when you have 100% pot equity and pure bluff is when you have 0% pot equity and rely only on opponent folding. Any bet in between has some protection value (it's either value + protection, which we often call just value bet, or bluff + protection, which we call semi-bluff). Say we have hand with 80% pot equity. If we check it down, then we win 0.8pot. If we bet enough, not giving opponent odds to call, we either get opponent to call ('value' value) or we get opponent to fold out his 20% pot equity, we win 1.0 pot, thus we got 0.2pot of protection value.

Now let's get to OP hand. Say we know that villain only calls better hands than AQ when we push. Let's assume we have 0% equity when called and that both calling and pushing with AQ is +EV.

our pot equity on flop:
AQ - z%, 32o - 0%

our equity when we fold:
AQ - 0%, 32o - 0%

our equity when villain calls our push:
AQ - 0%, 32o - 0%

our equity, when we call (taking into account turn and river actions):
AQ - y%>0, 32o - 0%

our fold equity, when we push:
AQ - x%>0, 32o - x%>0 (if it's <0, then obv just fold)

So on flop AQ has better pot equity than 32o, but it doesn't matter if we push or fold, because we get exactly same result (x% vs 0%). So the only difference here between AQ and 32o is that with AQ we have option of calling (y% equity). However, if x>y then best option is to push with both and thus they're equal. EV of pushing is the same, only how we define that value differs - with 32o it's pure bluff value, with AQ it's a protection value (we protect x-y%).

Not if the villain's calling range is solely {TT,77} .

Overall, tsojojo is right that when you shove AQo here you are turning it into a worse 32hh and it's rightly called a semi-bluff.

The only reason you think about calling it a protection/value bet is because you feel your AQo can win unimproved vs. villains betting range (or might even be ahead against it). However that hardly matters if you shove flop and aren't getting called by worse.

I think if you had like 87s and could be getting called by AJ+ here it would count as a protection/value bet and obv not a semi-bluff.

bump, I'm still unclear. sorry.

Arguing over some grammar/language stuff is pointless. What lable you stick on the play won't change the EV of it. It's not like when you call your 8 high river bet a valuebet, that it'll be profitable for you when you get called. Nor will you lose money when you bet a royal flush calling it a bluff. Who cares anyway. Poker is just math. If shoving AQ is +EV, it's +EV, wether its because of protection or semibluff or value or bla bla bla, +EV /thread.

Grindcore, that's a bad way to think about it. Considering an elephant a reptile won't make it one but will impede your studies of zoology.

bump. I like this thread