"Protecting Your Hand" (cross-post from Micro)

[Gravy (Gravy Smoothie)]

There have been a lot of posts recently in this forum about waiting until later streets to bet or raise because you want to "protect your hand," to the point where it's starting to become the new "charging the flush draws."

The concept of protecting your hand by waiting until a later street to raise applies to only a select few situations, definitely less than the number of posts on the forum about it seem to suggest. If you have the best hand on the flop, say, TPTK on the button, and someone in EP bets, most of the time you shouldn't wait until the turn to "protect your hand." If you are, you are missing bets. It is much more important to extract maximum value from a hand that is likely to hold up on the end.

There are a few situations where this concept IS applicable. Namely, this is when the flop is EXTREMELY draw heavy. The two scenarios i can think of are:
1) You have TPGK or an overpair and the flop is monotone, and you do not have a redraw to the flush. In this case, you want to typically wait until a non-trump turn to jam it, because on the flop you are barely a favorite to win the hand. However, you should still bet the flop in this case if it's checked to you, and call a raise back for sure.
2) The flop is otherwise very draw heavy. For example, you have QQ and the flop is 789 with two spades. Again, this doesn't mean you shouldn't bet the flop if checked to, and shouldn't raise if it presents you with the opportunity to force a couple opponents to call 2 cold.

In almost all other situations, however, you should be betting and raising your strong hands from start to finish. If you fail to do this, your winrate will suffer.