STOP SAYING you are raising or betting for information!

[baltostar]

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Todd,
As I said earlier a cbet is mainly for metagame so you can get value out of your big hands.

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So the withholding of information can be the primary purpose motivating a bet. Why is it that the gathering of information cannot? If chips can be spent in the name of information, withholding and gathering should both be legitimate aims.

Additionally, isn't significant information often gathered by a continuation bet? Can we avoid the natural, and often primary, information-gathering consequences of our c-bet via the doctrine of double effect by claiming we did not intend to bring about a result even though it was the probable consequence of our action?

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Extremely good thinking.

[AragornX151]

gobbo,

I think a lot of what you're saying has merit, and you're also a significantly better MTT'er than me, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt; I don't agree that raising for information is a worthless play. Overused, for sure. But it has its place. Example:

Let's take a similar hand to your OP. A decent but ABC player raises to 3x in the HJ. You think his range is certainly not ATC, but most pairs, SC's, and broadway cards. You call with 99. The flop comes Q72, and he leads for half the pot. You both have pretty deep stacks.

Given the opponent, you can mathematically narrow his range down, but you don't know exactly where you're at. He could certainly have a small pair, AJ, or JT, but he could also have AQ, AA, or 77.

Against this sort of opponent, a raise for information makes a lot of sense, because he'll basically answer your question for you. If he has queens or better, he'll call or raise, and you're done putting money into the pot. If he folds, you take the pot down.

In the most technical sense, sure, this raise was either a value bet or a bluff. If he folded JJ or TT, it was a bluff. If he mucked AJ, it was a value bet. But how can anyone but the absolute best hand readers really know which before they raise? They can make the mathematically prudent play given their opponent's range, but they have to wait to see how their opponent reacts before knowing the most +EV way to proceed.

I think the entire gist of the post goes back to the mantra of "having a plan" for every bet or raise you make. In my example, your plan is simple given the opponent; concede if he plays with you, win if he doesn't. Of course, most opponents won't be this easy to read, but (especially live) there are certainly plenty of them out there that will be.

[Stumpy]

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you're bluffing because you do not expect worse hands to call but it turns out if you get called by a draw that you were in fact valuebetting. If you happen to bet J9 on the flop but get called by 98, were you trying to 'protect' your jack high? No, you were bluffing and your opponent happened to have a hand that could call a bet and you were still ahead.

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Gobbo,
The two examples you give contradict. In the second one, you claim he was not betting for value just because one hand he beat called, because the range of hands that would call beats J9. In the first, just because one hand you beat calls does not mean you were ahead of his range. (And therefore doesn't move you from a bluff to a value bet.)


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If you believe that you have the best hand and you get called when you are ahead, then that's valuebetting in my definition.

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It isn't that simple. If you bet 100 into 600 on the turn with top pair and he calls with a flush draw, is that value betting? If he check/folds when he misses and a bet of 101 mades him fold the turn, betting 101 would get you more value. I think you should avoid defining Value / Bluff bets in terms of your opponents exact two cards. We never know his exact two cards, so we always deal with hand ranges. If you think you're ahead of his range, getting called by the top part of his range doesn't mean you were bluffing.


A lot of terms like "Betting for Information" and "Two Way Bet" are meant to explain situations where you're sure you don't have a good handle on your opponent's range. As you said, there are times you could bluff raise because you don't want to get bluffed. That could only be better if you're unsure of his hand range. I see no problem with assigning a name to this specific situation, so other players know what you're talking about.

I'm quite sure you can construct a situation where you're unsure of your opponent in a way that raising "for information" is the best play. You can call it bluffing if that term annoys you, but it is still a specific situation that exists, and the best response is a bluff. I agree that this play is massively misapplied and over-used by many players including myself, because just shoving chips in is a hell of a lot easier than thinking. For that reason I'm fine giving it a new name, but it may actually be a common enough situation that it deserves its own category, as Iso-Raise, Blocking Bet and Re-Steal do.

In math terms, subtraction and multiplication are both just addition, but math discussions would be a lot more confusing that way.

Overall, I think your post and the point you're trying to make is a good one. If you really want to force every bet into Value or Bluff, then you need to define your terms much more strictly though.

I think if all good bets could be put squarely into Bluff or Value, poker would have been figured out long ago. If you really try to resolve this down to a single variable, the result will be the FTOP. Basically you're bluffing if your oppoenent should call having seen your cards, and you're value betting if he should fold.

But all of that, plus the correct size bet to make, requires far more information then we ever have. So we end up with cases where you're bluffing with a draw, but you've got the chance of hitting the draw as a backup if called. Forcing that semi-bluff to be referred to only as a bluff is just going to make it harder for a novice to understand why that play may be better than bluffing drawing dead.

[baltostar]

This thread is very useful in that various contributions have made clear that gobboboy's bifurcation of bet motivations is too simplistic. In fact, very few pure bluffs are made, and even fewer pure value bets.

The vast majority of bets are combo bets: combinations of value, bluff, information, block, etc.

A c bet is a very nice example: it has components of value, bluff, info, and block.

A better way to think of why a bet makes sense is to always think in terms of FTOP. How specifically does your bet tend to cause an opponent to deviate his play from how it optimally should proceed vs your cards face-up.

Another important point: bluffing bets are being incorrectly defined by many on this thread and on the parallel Small Stakes MTT thread.

A bluff is not just an attempt to cause an opponent to fold a range you think you're behind.

A bluff is a representation of a hand other than that which you possess.

Repping what you don't have is synonymous with bluffing, and its uses are far more numerous than taking an opponent off a perceived range of EV greater than your own.

[Pudge714]

This whole thread is really confusing.
If the point of the OP is for hands like this
UTG Raises I call AJ on the button. Flop is A23 he bets I raise and if he calls or three bets he has AQ+ or AA and I can safely not put another chip in the pot. Than this seems like a really simple point and one which most competent poker players have learned.
If you are turning this into all bets in general you are really over simplifying.
Here is a kind of standard example UTG raise in 6max I three bet JJ he 4bets I fold. Some people might think raise folding is bad there because they seem to directly correlate raise or bet/folding on non river streets with raising/betting for information. Primarily my three bet is for value he can call with pairs, 76s, AK, AQ, whatever other random crap, but when he 4bets I know he has me crushed. While the main purpose of the raise is value I'm also gaining a ton of information, which is very useful.

[Ship Ship McGipp]

i refurse to read this thread

[g-p]

baltostar is smarter than most people give him credit

[aislephive]

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Value or bluff is too simplistic.
What about pot control bets, sometimes known as blocking bets, especially on the river? How is that either a value bet or a bluff?

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blocking bets are value bets

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Blocking bets are typically used when you are unsure if you're ahead/behind, but leaning towards behind and want to keep the pot small. How is that a value bet?

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Blocking bets are usually made with a hand that thinks they are likely ahead but don't want to check and face a big bet as well as not wanting to bet too big so that all worse hands fold.

Also, continuation bets are generally bluffs given that usually the preflop raiser usually doesn't have a strong enough hand to be value betting. This shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Raising for information can be a good play on occasion, but it is overused by weaker players as a copout to avoid having to make tougher decisions later on in the hand. If they raise the flop with 99 on the Q72 flop they plan on making a relatively easy decision of check/folding any future streets unimproved, rather than call the flop and have to deal with a turn bet or decide if they want to bet the turn if checked to or not. By raising in spots like that the make the hand easier to play but don't maximize value.

I can see gp's point in that for some players it may make sense to make an information raise because they will likely make some very -EV decisions later in the hand, and if they raise then they can make an easy decision after that while the play by itself is often profitable with any two, regardless of what they had.

[JammyDodga]

First proper post in HSMTT - so go easy.

Am I right in thinking that a so called bet for information only works by actually giving away information? You are telling your opponant that you are strong, and if he plays back at you, he is telling you that he is even stronger? Both sides have more information, the play is a lot simpler, and the variance to both sides is reduced.

Is this play is just a weasily way of reducing your variance, or is there an effect of EV for the two players? Who benifits most by this added information?

In general I think it probably depends on the skill levels of the two players, who is most likely to make a mistake later in the hand, in the absence of the clarity that a "raise for information" whould give to both sides.

However, in most cases it would be situation dependent.

For example, in a deepish cash game, you've just been 3-bet, you have KK, and you know he would only 3 bet with JJ+ or AK

You also know that if you 4-bet, he will fold everything but AA, and he will push with that.

Assume also that if you flat call, he will get it all in on any flop which doesnt contain an over to his pair.

In this case, although you can bet for information pre, he gains the most by the information you give him, as he would be more likely to make a mistake after the flop than you would, if you dont give him the extra info by 4-betting preflop.

Does there have to be a reverse situation, where you are more likley to make a mistake post flop that your opponant? Any thoughts?

[Stumpy]

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This whole thread is really confusing.
If the point of the OP is for hands like this
UTG Raises I call AJ on the button. Flop is A23 he bets I raise and if he calls or three bets he has AQ+ or AA and I can safely not put another chip in the pot. Than this seems like a really simple point and one which most competent poker players have learned.

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Pudge,
I think Gobbo would argue this is the exact spot where this move is used when it should not be.

If your opponent is bad enough that your raise is never played back at without a hand that beats you, then he's probably also bad enough that you could call him down, or call the flop and possible turn bets for the same number of chips, except you'd get to showdown, and possibly have a chance to get value from Ax hands you do beat. He's probably not going to bluff you on 3 streets if he's this straight-forward.

Also, if you believe your description of this hand, you should be looking to raise maybe 15% of the time when you don't have an A, or some reasonable % that wouldn't change your opponent's behavior. (Keep in mind when you don't have an A his range favors them more heavily.)

I do think there are spots where what you're describing is the best solution though.