Fossilman vs TOP & HOH - who's right?

[DonT77]

To protect or not to protect, that is the question ...


In a recent issue of CardPlayer Magazine, Greg (Fossilman) Raymer was quoted as saying-

Protecting your hand is a fictitious concept. The true concept when it comes to bet size is maximizing your expected return on the pot. You might wind up protecting your hand as a result of making the right play. But, you should never be thinking, “I need to protect my hand.”
Fossilman article in CardPlayer

This seems to run contrary to most poker literature which appear to suggest that we should indeed try to protect our hand. Here are a couple of samples-

From Sklansky's TOP (Chapter 9, page 72)-

Whenever possible then, with the best hand, bet an amount large enough so that by calling your opponent is not making the correct play. Furthermore, in no-limit and pot-limit games, you must be careful, as we saw in chapter 7, to bet a sufficiently large amount so that your opponent is not getting sufficiently good implied odds to make a call correct.

and from HOH-V1 (pp 346-347) –

I want to bet enough so that if he’s on a flush draw and he calls, he’s making a mistake. As long as I force him to make a mistake, I’ve done my job, whether he then draws out on me or not. By adjusting my bet size to the pot size, I can control the odds that I’m offering.


From experience I know what Greg is talking about - sometimes when you bet to 'protect your hand' you fail to maximize your return on the pot. OTOH, I really hate pricing in my opponents when I have them on a draw. So how do we best handle this situation?

Discuss...

[jafeather]

I don't see the contrast. Fossilman is saying you shouldn't be betting to protect your hand, but because it's the right play. Sklansky and Harrington are just doing a little bit more describing of what the right play is. Bet an amount that if they call they're making a mathematically incorrect move.

[mlagoo]

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So how do we best handle this situation?

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i thought this was funny.

i think you're misunderstanding what greg is saying. although it's possible i'm mistaken, i think his point is that there are times that there are countervailing interests (in most cases these are things like controlling the size of the pot or getting to showdown with a marginal hand) that outweigh the interest of "protecting your hand" (or, charging your opponent the maximum to draw to a better hand).

i think the point is that you shouldn't be locked into the mentality "oh i have top pair, i have to bet and raise at every opportunity or i'll be drawn out on." you should be betting/raising amounts that you think will induce your opponent to make a mistake, while at the same time (to the extent that it's possible) leaving yourself room to make decisions on later streets.

i wanted to check the context surrounding the paragraph you quoted but i can't seem to access the article from here.

[bgoalie35]

They are actually saying the same thing. Read the context around the Fossilman quote (context is always key), especially the next quote after the one you have posted. Fossilman is addressing massive overbetting to "protect" your hand. Your massive overbet does nothing but fold the bad hands, and allow the hands that beat you to take all your chips. He advocates betting just enough to make your opponent make a mistake. If he then calls you or folds, you don't really care because you've done your job to this point.

All three are saying don't bet 900 into a 300 pot to "protect" your top pair. At the same time, don't minbet into the pot and give your opponent sufficient odds to call with, and make the right choice.

[LearnedfromTV]

The key difference is that Raymer's comment deals more directly with the fact that you are facing a range of hands and a range of opponent tendencies, rather a specific hand that you can expect an opponent to play a specific way.

Sklansky tends to deal with this indirectly in his books by listing off multiple what-if scenarios (assume your opponent has x and will do y with it), each of which has a definite Fundamental Theorem of Poker correct answer. The thing you have to tease out from Sklansky's list of scenarios is that the correct play given incomplete information lies in the weighing of these different complete information scenarios and answers.

Two sides of the same coin.

[DonT77]

The contrast (IMO) is that Fossilman is saying that betting to protect your hand does not always maximize your value in the pot (and therefore is not always the best play - although sometimes protecting your hand is a by-product of trying to maximize your value); whereas most other literature suggests that betting to protect your hand is usually the best play (although TOP in other sections also advocates trying to induce mistakes by your opponent - which seems to be more like what Greg is saying).


Here is an example-

UB 50+5 or 100+9 MTT (2 weeks ago from memory), Midway through, blinds at 50/100. 9-handed, I'm in UTG+1 with KcQs and raise to 300 leaving 4700 behind. A wildly aggressive, big stack LAG (35/20/4 w/9000 chips) calls behind in MP. Everybody else folds, Pot = 750.

Two the flop - Q73 with 2 hearts. I c-bet the flop 500 (2/3P). Opponent, who is known to both float ATF and call big bets on draw, flat calls. Now the pot is 1750 and I have 4200 behind. The turn is 2d. What should I do?

To protect my hand (which most literature seems to advocate), I would have to bet around 800-1200, but because I know this opponent will pressure me if he senses weakness - I check instead (not 'protecting my hand'), MP bets the pot - trying to pressure me off the best hand (according to my read and his ROHs) and I end up taking a big pot off of him - which seems to be more in line with what Greg is saying about not always having to protect your hand to maximize your value in the pot.

As a disclaimer - I don't necessarily think that what Greg, TOP, and HOH are saying contradict each other, but it does seem that there are some fine points in here worth discussing (thus the catchy title to my post). [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[AceLuby]

Protecting your hand is usually the best play because it usually gives you the most +EV. For people who don't want to deal w/ numbers I think that simply stating you need to protect your hand is a good default.

For most that post here we know that this is glazing over a much deeper thought process.

The example above I think is the exception to the rule. You had a read on him that he would float w/ air, go OTT if he sensed weakness, and because you believed the only way to get all his chips in the middle was to check you did so. But you did so in part because you protected your hand on the flop.

[deankeaton7]

[ QUOTE ]
The key difference is that Raymer's comment deals more directly with the fact that you are facing a range of hands and a range of opponent tendencies, rather a specific hand that you can expect an opponent to play a specific way.

Sklansky tends to deal with this indirectly in his books by listing off multiple what-if scenarios (assume your opponent has x and will do y with it), each of which has a definite Fundamental Theorem of Poker correct answer. The thing you have to tease out from Sklansky's list of scenarios is that the correct play given incomplete information lies in the weighing of these different complete information scenarios and answers.

Two sides of the same coin.

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Two sides of the same coin, definitely. They are getting at the same point, except raymer's (and learnedfromtv made a great point about the range of hands, rather than a specific hand) is an offensive minded strategy, and the other two are somewhat more defensive.

Raymer (and another that comes to mind is matt matros) are always concerned about gaining chips, maximizing value, whatever the best way to do that is. Sklansky and harrington seem more concerned with making their opponents make -EV decisions, rather than maximizing EV. A small difference, but they are talking about essentially the same thing.

[A_PLUS]

[ QUOTE ]
Protecting your hand is usually the best play because it usually gives you the most +EV.

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Deep stacked, TPGK isnt really a hand we should be 'protecting' per say. My thought on protecting a hand, is when I know I'm not folding the hand, then for me, it becomes an issue of ruining his implied odds rather than 'protecting' my hand. I think protecting a good hand as a default play, makes you pretty likely to get stacked by a good player who is willing to see a flop with a wide range of cards.

This is why many so-so no limit players can be successful in tournaments, after the first few levels, something like 'always ptrotect' isnt really a leak (b/c of stack sizes).

It really comes down to the thought process that people use when they think of protection. It tends to make us assume our hand is good, when if they call our outsized bet, our hand probably isnt.