Defining your hand: is it ever a good idea?

[betgo]

I see talk about "defining your hand". To me, that means letting your opponent know what you have. It seems like you don't want to do that, although it may sometimes be a necessary side effect of correct play. Is defining your hand ever a good idea?

[WarDekar]

This always tilts me...

I mean, everything you do in theory somehow defines your hand. Every action you take in the hand will always somehow alter his perceived range of you, thus everything you do "defines" your hand to some degree.

But in general, when people say they're going to "define" their hand, they do in fact narrow it down pretty tight which is an awful thing to do.

[TJ Eckleburg12]

WRT the other thread, perhaps a better choice of words in my post should have been "protecting our hand."

I obviously agree we're not trying to make it easier for opponents to read us.

I think that by not taking the lead, we can make it easier for villains to suck out on us AND not let us know enough about what THEY have.

E.G. in that other thread suppose Villain hit a kicker to make two pair on the turn while we were cryptically just calling and keeping our range less defined.

[betgo]

I am not talking about the other thread. I was somewhat inspired by the other thread, but this is a general question. If you want to discuss the other thread, please discuss it in the other thread.

[burningyen]

It seems to me that when people talk about defining their hand they really mean defining their opponent's hand.

[Yoshi63]

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It seems to me that when people talk about defining their hand they really mean defining their opponent's hand.

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I think it's a combination. You are making it kind of obvious what you have to your opponent, so that you can figure out what they have and act accordingly.

To betgo's original question, I do think it can sometimes be a good idea. It would clearly need to be against an unsophisticated opponent who won't think any deeper than "looks like he's got an overpair!" I don't personally do this, but before you say it's always a terrible idea, remember that not all opponents are as smart as you and capable of exploiting anything.

[Steve Williams]

I was reading an older thread in HSNL that mentioned its OK if your opponent knows what you have as long as you play correctly knowing that they know what you have. Thread is here.

I usually try to undefine my hand as much as possible while still extracting value: making my weak hands look stronger and my strong hands look weaker. When I have a great hand and feel my opponent has a strong second best hand, or when I think he is pot committed, I will "define" my hand with a big bet that I expect to be called the large majority of the time.

Defining your hand seems like a more valuable concept in limit HE since raising with one pair is so much more common to lower odds for chasers, even though they often come along anyway. In NL pot odds are so easily manipulated that there's less need to do this.

[Cornell Fiji]

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And the way I was disputing this was pointing out that for every bet we make for value in a spot we should be bluffing a certain % of the time as well, thus never allowing our opponent to "define our hand" to one specific hand.

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I disagree with this statement.

[Paul Thomson]

well it depends are we defining our hand at the top of our range or the bottom of the range. And how does that effect the given context.

[Paul Thomson]

I don't think the OP asked a very good question. What do you mean by defining our hand?

If you mean, turn it over so the Villain knows what we have?

And since you don't mean that, then what do you mean?