STOP SAYING you are raising or betting for information!

[baltostar]

[ QUOTE ]
Let me ask you this Balto. Let's say we raise AA preflop, the BB calls and leads an 894 rainbow flop. He unknowingly exposes his hand of QJo. What is your play?

[/ QUOTE ]

Villain is semibluffing a gutshot and has 4 outs to improve to ahead on the turn. If he hits, the other 2 A are of no value to me on the turn. 4/45 = ~9%. So I'm 91% to still be ahead on the turn.

Turn to river, it can get better for him, but only slightly. If he pairs his Q or J on the turn, he's 9/44 to improve to ahead on the river, while I'm 2/44 to nullify 4 of his outs (assuming I haven't hit my A on the turn). In this case, chance I'm still ahead turn to river is 1 - (9/44 - (5/44 * 2/44)) = 80%

Obviously the above isn't PokerStove, but clear enough.

A raise most probably folds most opponents, and I obtain excellent value by calling his flop bet. If I'm still ahead ditto for turn -- in fact, I probably even check back to him, hoping for him to bet river.

[aislephive]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You aren't only valuebetting or bluffing, sometimes you are betting to protect your hand. For instance in the 99 hand mentioned in the OP, if you think your opponent has AK and won't ever put more money in the pot if they are behind, it would be correct to raise so as to not give 6 free outs.

Note that I don't advocate raising there at all, just saying that this is theoretically a reason to raise as well. Saying that you are either valuebetting or bluffing is a bit simplistic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree 100%. Too lazy to read any other posts in this thread now that the obvious reply has been made.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the hand curtains described, we would realisticaly never be able to narrow somebody's hand range down to simply AK. For the sake of argument let's say that he open raises AK-AJ, and TT+. Now let's keep the same assumption about his postflop tendencies, and let's say he cbets his entire range on this Q72 rainbow flop, and he will lead the turn with top pair or better and check/fold everything else. He will also never fold top pair or better to any amount of heat. In this example (which is more practical than the one curtains gave), calling would be better than raising. By raising, we fold out TT/JJ/AK/AJ from our opponents range. However, AA/KK/QQ/AQ would always call or reraise. If we had instead called the flop, we would know that if he continued to bet the turn, we could easily fold because his range consisted of better hands that would not fold to raises. If he checked, his range consisted of hands that were folding to a bet. By calling the flop, we got the extra information on the turn of our opponent's hand range and could make a trivial decision based on it. We lost less by calling than raising against QQ+/AQ.

It's very similar to floating. When you float you do it on somebody who has a strong tendency to check/fold marginal made hands and air and continue to bet strongly with a good hand. By just calling their cbet you get the added information by their turn action without risking as much by raising. It's also a more believable line against a lot of thinking players because a lot of players won't raise with top pair, therefore a flop raise looks bluffy since it's really hard to flop a better hand than top pair.

[jlocdog]

ZJ,

I touched on this with you in one of the HSNL threads. Ike's I believe. Betting to protect your hand is still a value bet. The value lies in the pot itself. Winning a pot that you may lose on a later street. This concept was also brought up in a whitelime thread a while back. Sometimes taking a -EV play now may be best if it involves avoiding an even worse EV play later (or to rephrase, a non optimal EV line).

In my opinion, poker involves responsibility for your actions. When you decide to bet, call, or raise you need to have an understanding on why you are doing it, how you will react to counter moves, and what you wish to accomplish with your move. Each individual bet (not street as often there is more then one action per street) needs to have justification on why it was done. Sometimes you find yourself valuye betting, get raised, and thewn bluff reraising. So with each action your motives may change. Understanding why you do what you do will ultimately dictate which type of bet it is.

Again though, we are dealing with semantics when discussing bets as being 2 types and 2 types only. The heart of this matter though falls in ones motives for their actions and assuming responsibility for their subsequent decisions.

[bluesbassman]

[ QUOTE ]


Ok, I lied. Wanted to see if anyone had any crazy incorrect replies to Curtains, and Gobbo didn't let me down!

[/ QUOTE ]

As I stated in my earlier post, it is more precise to think about bets to gain value from showdown equity vs bets to gain value from fold equity, or some combination thereof. I think Gobbo's point is that you should know exactly from which of these sources (or combination) you are gaining value for each bet, rather than making -EV bets to gain "information."

[ QUOTE ]

There are a lot more reasons to bet than just for value or to bluff. Protecting your hand is only one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bets to "protect" your hand just means that it's a bet which induces a -cEV proposition for your opponent to call. In other words, you are exploiting showdown equity.

[ QUOTE ]

Sometimes you want to over rep or under rep your hand with a bet to set up some action (or lack there of) on future streets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, this is another way of stating you are betting to maximize your showdown equity. Sometimes that means create a big pot or keep it small.

[ QUOTE ]

And sometimes, you want to rep exactly what you do have against a non-tricky opponent that will then turn his hand face up in response. That way, you can't make a huge mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean here.

[ QUOTE ]

You can also bet to induce a raise so that you can semi-bluff with a draw.

[/ QUOTE ]

A semi-bluff is the classic case in which you are exploiting the sum of your (showdown equity + fold equity).

[ QUOTE ]

You can sometimes bet into someone you know that will call with a worse hand, where that call will encourage someone with a better hand to fold, in which case you are both value betting AND bluffing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you talking about a multiway pot, in which you are trying to isolate the hand worse than yours?

[ QUOTE ]
You can raise a shortstack preflop to isolate. This generally neither a value bet nor a bluff.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are again exploiting showdown equity + fold equity. In this case, the fold equity is with respect to the stacks behind, and you figure to have adequate showdown value against the shortie.

[ QUOTE ]

There is no reason to simplify all bets into one of two categories.



[/ QUOTE ]

But I still think you should understand from which of the two (or combination) of those equities you are gaining value for every bet.

[PrayingMantis]

Suppose I bet flop and bet again turn with nothing (both bets not too big) only beacause I know that villain calls me with a lot of hands (all of them beat me), but is weak when it comes to big river decisions. Then I over-bet push river when he checks to me, because I know he can very rarely call me there, almost regardless of board.

How would you call my flop and turn bets? Obviously these are "building a pot" bets, but they are not bluffs and not value bets in the normal sense: he is calling me both times with better hands.

[ZeeJustin]

Ok, here is an undeniable example of a bet that is neither a value bet nor a bluff:

You played some crazy crap from utg preflop, and now have the best hand on the river. You are 98% sure your opponent has 5 high. If you are wrong, he most likely has you beat and will definitely call if he does. He will never call you when you have him beat.

You bet anyway, just to avoid showing your hand down. You don't want the table to know about the crap you played UTG for image purposes.

[jlocdog]

Keeping the semantics theme alive, that bet is a bluff. The reason we turned our hand into a bluff was for reasons your example stated. It still is a bluff though.

Just because you turn a made hand into a bluff doesn't change the fact of what it is. Whether it be a good one or a bad one is NOT the point. Whether meta implications or table dynamics make you choose this line IS the point.

[bluesbassman]

[ QUOTE ]
How would you call my flop and turn bets? Obviously these are "building a pot" bets, but they are not bluffs and not value bets in the normal sense: he is calling me both times with better hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are clearly exploiting fold equity. In the scenario you describe, the bets on earlier streets are required to create fold equity on the river.

My point is rather tautological. There are only two ways to win chips, so every bet must gain value from one (or both) of those two ways.

Gobbo's point (as I understand it) is that you should understand how every bet gains value from showdown equity and/or fold equity.

[aislephive]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, here is an undeniable example of a bet that is neither a value bet nor a bluff:

You played some crazy crap from utg preflop, and now have the best hand on the river. You are 98% sure your opponent has 5 high. If you are wrong, he most likely has you beat and will definitely call if he does. He will never call you when you have him beat.

You bet anyway, just to avoid showing your hand down. You don't want the table to know about the crap you played UTG for image purposes.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a bluff.

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
Betting to protect your hand is still a value bet. The value lies in the pot itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's just wrong. The value of a Value Bet, is in the bet, I.E when it's called. If the value of the bet is in the pot, that means the value is in your fold equity.

A PURE value bet by definition is only correct if you are ahead >50% of the time when called.

I'll even go out on a limb and say it's very rare (maybe even impossible), for a bet to be purely for value if it isn't on the river.

This is, of course, just a semantic argument, but you are misusing the term.