When to protect your hand?

AcidJazz · #1 01-28-2006, 02:31 PM

I'm trying to get a solid understanding of the concepts in SSHE... I don't seem to have any problem preflop on the turn and river. (well I don't think anyway).

You can fold, check/call or raise on the flop. Folding is easy when you know you don't have the best hand and can calculate your pot odds + implied odds vs your odds of improving. Oh yeah correct me if I'm wrong or thinking too simplistically about anything. Usually I only take my pot odds into favor unless its a really close call.

Position and your hand with the flop seems to be a pretty big determinate in what you do if you're going to stay in the flop... For now all I'm going to ask is should you only be protecting your hand if you think you might have the best but are easily outdrawn? What about a second rate hand? Usually when I have top pair I like to raise preflop and see what happens behind. Ahhh... There's too many situations.

Perhaps somebody can elaborate a little on protecting your hand mainly when you don't think you have the best hand... Perhaps when if you do improve you'll be easily outdrawn again? Ugh... Sorry the question's a bit broad.

AcidJazz · #2 01-28-2006, 02:39 PM

Oh yeah somebody made the comment to me betting while you're ahead and not when you're behind (unless its for value on a strong draw)... Is that something I should keep in the back of my mind as well? Sounds like an easy concept but sometimes its easy to know

bozlax · #3 01-28-2006, 04:28 PM

Ok. A fundamental principle of micros is that it's very hard to protect your hand on the flop, as most players will get to the turn with any piece of crap they saw the flop with.

If you think you're ahead you're more likely to be value-betting. You're also value-betting/raising when you've got a strong draw (nut/2nut FD, OESD) and at least 3 opponents. For weaker draws (5 outs to two-pair or better, 5.5 for gutshot + BDFD) you need more.

You're "protecting" mostly by making the odds wrong for players behind you to call, IF THEY ARE HOLDING CERTAIN CARDS. The last part is uppercase because it's important; it's very, very hard, frequently, to get a good hand range on opponents, so you're doing this based on what the board has. You're not going to get them to fold, so you're just trying to get them to make a mistake by calling.