Protection bet or c/c?

interesting question, I always find myself confused on these spots. but I'm no math or theory guru, so maybe someone who knows better than I do explain this in depth?

I hope Internet explains this

Interesting question, we sometimes bet because checking looks so weak and weaker hands than our hand might makes us laydown the best hand wii..

This is something I've been thinking about lately.... No conclusions yet, but I want to share with you the theory that I've found about it.

In order to protection bet 2 things must be true:

-Our hand has to have 50%+ equity against opponent's ENITRE range. If our hand has less than 50% equity, then we can bet as a bluff but the protection part doesn't matter.
-The benefit from making high equity hands fold (equity foldrange*flop pot) must be greater than the benefit we get from inducing action against this same range (bluff freq%*opp bluff bet - Bluffs Eq*river pot)

That's the most specific advise that I found and it seems reasonable. I don't know if the formulas are 100% accurate, but it makes sense to try to compare the EV of inducing action vs protection betting against opponent's folding range, since our hand makes money mostly from opponent's folding range in one way or the other.

-Our hand has to have 50%+ equity against opponent's ENITRE range

Can you please give a source where you learned it?
Imo it cant be enough to have >50% equity vs entire range, because once we get called, vs his calling range we will have <50% equity which means it is a losing play?

Imo it is also not enough even to have e.g. 55% equity vs villians calling range, because we are not going to realize our equity, will be raise % of time and have to fold, or will have to fold vs turn and river agression especially on bad runouts (and with hands that have only about 50% equity mostly many cards are bad on turn and river).
For example, we might have 22 which has 55% equity vs entire range of villian, but the hand has bad playability, which is why I think we cant purely look at equity of the hand.

(bluff freq%*opp bluff bet - Bluffs Eq*river pot)

Here you just consider villian will bet turn and check river, but what about his implied odds once he hits his e.g. top pair, or when he bluffs again river and you plan to fold any river card? Imo these two factors which you mentioned are very tough to calculate and decide for it, especially because all we know about frequencies of opponent is pure assumptions.

(equity foldrange*flop pot)

For this one, it is calculated as we play on river and it villian checks behind. What about his postflop frequencies, and implied odds? I find this comparison totally innacurate.

texture of e flop

what villain puts u on e hand range pre-flop n whether yr hands can be linked to e flop. It goes back to reading n hand history and what villain is capable of doing. he can be calling light or on air on a wet board just to make a bluff on e turn or river. n oso always confuse yr opponents n not make yrself readable. u can do a protection bet or c/c at times. poker is also a psychology game. it's how u make a player think he can read u. but when in fact he cant. den u beat e villain n crush him completely.

Just my 2cents worth
XAY

Hey gingerkid!

I can't give you the source in this forum, sorry.

IMO, they say we should have 50% eq against his entire range because if we don't, then our main goal should either try to get to showdown as cheaply as possible or try to get better hands to fold. And for me the real problem is with hands that can't bet for value, i.e. they have 50%+ equity against opponent's entire range but less than 50% eq against his continuing range.

But as you say that's not enough. The second point is the important one and more difficult to answer. We are talking about what to do with vulnerable bluffcatchers, right? with that kind of hand we can win money by making high equity hands fold or by inducing bluffs.

I saw some examples, but they were on turn situations. They calculated if it was better to bet turn or chbh turn and call river. But if we have to take into account turn and river, then thinks get trickier.

Here in PS we have a couple of videos that talk about that. I recommend you the Internet's video about cbetting. When he analyses what to do with second pairs, etc. And sirrybob also talks about that in some of his reviews (he likes to check most of the time).

Let's see if someone else can help us with this. That's all I can tell you.

I've just rewatched the internet's vid. And he gave some more guidelines:

-How much foldequity do we have?
-How often will we see a raise?
-How does our hand play as a check?

There were a couple of examples. First one with K6 on 86xs. Here we expect the opponent to check/raise a bunch and some overcards with bd fd etc. won't fold. So it seems that checking is better.

Then 76 on J7xs. Here we don't have much foldequity. Most overcards to our pair of sevens will call, raise, etc. So checking would be better again.

Another example that comes to my mind is when he hold 65s in A63r. Here it would make more sense to bet because many many overcards will simply fold to our bet and we won't see check raises very very often.

I think it is very useful to examine concrete examples.

Originally posted by Shakaflaka
I've just rewatched the internet's vid. And he gave some more guidelines:

-How much foldequity do we have?
-How often will we see a raise?
-How does our hand play as a check?

There were a couple of examples. First one with K6 on 86xs. Here we expect the opponent to check/raise a bunch and some overcards with bd fd etc. won't fold. So it seems that checking is better.

Then 76 on J7xs. Here we don't have much foldequity. Most overcards to our pair of sevens will call, raise, etc. So checking would be better again.

Another example that comes to my mind is when he hold 65s in A63r. Here it would make more sense to bet because many many overcards will simply fold to our bet and we won't see check raises very very often.

I think it is very useful to examine concrete examples.

hi,

Thanks, it was usefull explanation. I will watch his video. As I can see,all of the reasons to cbet or not look very much based on assumptions, no real math/proof saying what is better. But I guess, those hands are apsolutely hardest to play, since we dont know how good is our hand, and cant handle much pressure, all other hands are either clear bluffs or value so we know what to do.

Yeah it's a good point that the hands in question aren't clear cut bluffs or value so they're hard to play and also kinda hard to do cold hard math with them. Some of those hands could be treated a bit like semi bluffs but the difference between them and gutshot is that gutter is drawing a much stronger hand but then again the second pair has more showdown value (and there's 1 more out).

Things to consider right off the top of my head: raising frequency, betting and barreling frequencies when we check, board coverage, board texture, playability, fold equity, equity of the potential folding hands, equity vs calls, how much equity we lose vs the raising range. I find it super hard to calculate the best possible lines and I'm surely not the only one. We just have to make the best possible guestimations, but of course rough math based analysis, experience, brainstorming and conversations like this and trial and error make those guestimations more accurate.

P.S. Welcome to the forum our first time poster, xay009

I don't think that a 50%+ equity rule is very helpful. It's going to be different in different situations. Labeling a bet as protection, value or a bluff isn't really too important. Different hands will have different makeups of protection, value and bluff. In different spots different makeups will be more effective in different lines.

I think it's better to take a more holistic view of both ranges and the board, then decide how one goes about, in no particular order:
-%'s they want to hit in each line i.e. bet flop, x/f turn... bet flop, bet turn... c/f flop... c/c flop, c/f turn
-how they want to construct their range each of these lines.

Basically when you have the best hand the reason you bet it's for value and the protection it's just the consequence. Of course it depends a lot of the board texture and the opponent tendances, if you bet you isolate yourself vs range that dominate you? Can he fold some part of the his range that beat you? Are they a lot of good river to bet again? Also you are out of position, there are a lot of things to consider and it may be very tricky in some spots because both options are very close.

Lots of factors:
- Betting strengthens your opponent's range on later streets
- Betting increases size of pot
- Betting gives opponent option to raise

Typically, in betting, we want:
- fold out opponent's equity
- increase size of pot
- have plan against raise