Waiting till the turn to protect a hand

[Stuck]

So I've been playing limit hold'em for a while, and my basic strategy has been to get as much money in the pot when I think I'm ahead. But I keep coming across the idea that occasionally it might not be right to raise a bettor on the flop, because you're unable to raise sufficiently to protect your hand, and instead wait until the turn, where draws will be unable to correctly call your raise. But then when I think about it some more, it seems like a case of winning more pots, but not winning more money. Don't you want them to call on the flop, even though they may then have odds to call on the turn as well, since, even though they have good pot odds, you're still more likely to win the pot than they are? Can someone explain to me where I'm going wrong in thinking about this? Thanks!

[Stork]

If they have correct odds to call, then they're not making a mistake when they do so. In the case where you are the favorite to win, you still make money, but not as much as you would if you had waited for the turn, when they have insufficient odds. Then when they call, they do so to their detriment, and you gain.

[johnc]

I see two times where waiting for the turn is better in terms of winning the pot: 1) you got the best but somewhat vulnerable hand such as two pair with draws on board - you call flop bets, see if the turn card is a blank - then you can bet/raise/reraise(this is not a slowplay!), 2) the pot's too big on the flop to get people to fold to your better holdings so wait for the turn when the bets double allowing your bets/raises to give those longshot draws improper odds to continue.

[Stork]

Waiting for the turn to raise is best when: you cannot offer people incorrect odds on the flop, you know they will call getting correct odds on the flop, and waiting for the turn will offer opponents incorrect odds. All the above have to be true for waiting for the turn to be more profitable than a flop raise.

[Stuck]

Thanks for the reply but I still don't get it - maybe it needs to be more concrete. I mean, suppose you're up against a flush draw (2:1 by the river). He may have the correct pot odds (due to a bunch of preflop limpers) to call your raise on the flop. But, you're still more likely to win the pot than he is, so everything additional you can throw in there is +EV, right? Even though you're now giving him the correct odds on the turn too you'll still be favorite there as well? What am I missing? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[johnc]

You're correct in that many times the pots become too bloated to offer incorrect odds by putting more chips in. You might be giving a cheaper card by not raising the flop, but your intention is to wait for the blank card on the turn then bet & raise to make it as painful as you can for those draws to call to the river. Raising will also make up for those occasions when you do get drawn out on.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Even though you're now giving him the correct odds on the turn too you'll still be favorite there as well? What am I missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't you a bigger favorite on the the turn? Add to that that the turn bets are double size. Wouldn't you rather get the most money in when you can put in bigger bets while you're the bigger favorite also?

In your example the flush draw goes from about a 35% chance of hitting to about 20%. That's almost a 50% increase in EV for you just on his odds to hit alone.

b

[Stuck]

Oh, OK, I think I might have missed something fairly obvious - there's an underlying (obviously quite reasonable!) assumption in all of this, i.e. that if you raise the flop, you won't have chance to raise the turn?

[CMonkey]

I don't think you're missing anything, but it seems to me you're talking about two different types of raises, value raises and protection raises. A raise can be one, the other, or both.

A concrete example: You are on the button. Two players limp, and you limp (even though you considered raising to drive out the blinds and sabotage the implied odds of the limpers). The SB completes, and the BB checks. The flop comes two of a suit and you hold top pair with top kicker. All four opponents check to you; should you bet?

It depends. First off, can you bet for value here? That is, do you win more often than 20% of the time with your hand? If so, you can bet. Sure, if anyone is on a flush draw they will call your bet and then call again on the turn if the pot odds/implied odds warrant it. But as long as you win often enough overall, you can still bet. Of course, the practical side is that since everyone limped, you have limited information with which to judge whether or not you can value bet (so maybe you bet for information here).

But say you somehow determine you cannot value bet because you won't win often enough. Can you bet for protection? Through your supernatural powers of reading other players, you surmise that their limps and checks indicate that at least one player is on a flush draw. So you can't bet for protection either. You have to wait until the turn and then reevaluate betting.

But you can take this further. Maybe you can value bet on the flop. However, maybe you also know your opponents are very weak-tight postflop and will likely fold if they don't hit anything on the turn and they don't have proper odds to continue. In this case, even though value betting on the flop is a +EV play, it might be even more +EV to check and bet on the turn if a blank hits. By denying proper draw odds to your opponents, it may allow you to pick up additional pots you might not otherwise have won. If the pot size is already large enough, the value of picking up additional pots might outweigh betting for value on the flop (or it might not, hence the need to use experience and good judgement). Conversely, maybe you know that you can bet for value and that your opponents are very loose-passive, taking any draw at all to the river. You're not going to pick up the pot on the turn in this case so you can value bet.

[ACW]

What you're missing is that when they call, you get a share of their bet. When they fold you get their share of the pot, which is bigger whenever they have the correct odds to call.