hand protection in practice

[drzen]

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It isn't terrible or anything (provided that you bet the turn). It is kinda pointless if you are going to check the turn. I mean do you really think that he will fold for one more bet on the flop?

I would call the flop as our hand needs help more often then it needs protection. Really the best reason to raise is to get AK to fold but does it happen enough to warrent a raise? Seems doubtful.

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You don't think you'd like to see other bullsheet Ax hands fold? Or other hands that might just draw out on us if we are ahead at this point? HU, our hand might even be good here, so getting the rest of the field to fold is pretty good. Even if we're behind, we pretty much cleaned up our outs, which doubled our chances of winning. It's a nice big pot, so surely that's worth a bet?

[Entity]

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You don't think you'd like to see other bullsheet Ax hands fold?

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Why do you want other Ax hands to fold? The pot is big and all, but they're peeling very lightly to begin, and they're drawing to 3 outs at best vs you, when you may very well be drawing to ~4.5 outs at best anyway.

It's really not worth it here. If the button were a bit more aggressive (.6 isn't passive, but he's not usually betting with two unpaired cards here) then it's obviously a lot closer; the parlay that you have to deal with here leaves your hand a bit too short on the handstrength necessary to make it worthwhile.

Rob

[Entity]

Just for the general record, I wrote a bit more about this hand on my blog, here: http://geekpoker.net/?p=52

I see a lot of people raising to "clean up outs" or raising for "hand protection" a lot without actually considering what sorts of boards/opponents are good for this sort of play and what sort of boards are horrible for it.

Here's an example of a hand I played recently that would have the "raising for hand protection / cleaning up outs" in a much more applicable way:

I raise A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] in EP, 6-handed, and am 3-bet by a TAG who is next to act. The BB, a fairly loose, bad player who calls too much preflop, calls as well. 3 players to the flop for 10SB.

The flop is 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. The SB bets, and I raise.

Does this make a bit more sense as an example of when to raise?

Rob

[drzen]

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You don't think you'd like to see other bullsheet Ax hands fold?

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Why do you want other Ax hands to fold? The pot is big and all, but they're peeling very lightly to begin, and they're drawing to 3 outs at best vs you, when you may very well be drawing to ~4.5 outs at best anyway.

It's really not worth it here. If the button were a bit more aggressive (.6 isn't passive, but he's not usually betting with two unpaired cards here) then it's obviously a lot closer; the parlay that you have to deal with here leaves your hand a bit too short on the handstrength necessary to make it worthwhile.

Rob

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I guess I'm a bit less convinced that small pairs with A kicker will call. And 3 outs is 3 outs! If one of the other players had A6, they reverse dominate us on the turn.

Miller/Sklansky say you need only improve your chances by a fairly small amount, and this is a big pot, so I guess I'm wondering how much is enough?

[Entity]

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You don't think you'd like to see other bullsheet Ax hands fold?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you want other Ax hands to fold? The pot is big and all, but they're peeling very lightly to begin, and they're drawing to 3 outs at best vs you, when you may very well be drawing to ~4.5 outs at best anyway.

It's really not worth it here. If the button were a bit more aggressive (.6 isn't passive, but he's not usually betting with two unpaired cards here) then it's obviously a lot closer; the parlay that you have to deal with here leaves your hand a bit too short on the handstrength necessary to make it worthwhile.

Rob

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I guess I'm a bit less convinced that small pairs with A kicker will call. And 3 outs is 3 outs! If one of the other players had A6, they reverse dominate us on the turn.

Miller/Sklansky say you need only improve your chances by a fairly small amount, and this is a big pot, so I guess I'm wondering how much is enough?

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A3 and A4 are getting 14.4:2 on an immediate flop call. There's no way that they're folding (not that the sort of player who will usually have A4 or A3 is counting outs or odds) -- in general those hands won't be folding before the river in a pot this size, regardless.

As far as your other post goes (3 outs is 3 outs), you should be more interested in folding out 6 outers, for obvious reasons; the problem with this, though, is that you have to recognize that if you're already drawing to 5 outs and you're unlikely to win unimproved. Raising to increase your chances of winning by 10-15% when you're holding an incredibly marginal hand that is unlikely to be best and has little chance of improving to the best hand. Would you checkraise the flop with 22 here because you thought that you wanted to make sure anyone holding KQ folded?

What you're looking at here is a classic parlay, and the strength of your hand vs. the range of the flop bettor here isn't wide enough for a checkraise to increase your marginal chances of winning to be worthwhile.

Rob