Betting for Protection

By Andrew Brokos

Early in their no-limit hold ’em careers, many players are overly concerned with protecting their hands. Novice players with top pair commonly obsess over the possibility of a flush draw and often become so single-minded about “charging the draw” that they fail to get value from second-best hands and/or to protect the remainder of their stacks from sets and the like.

After making this mistake for a while, players eventually learn their lesson. Many overcorrect and adopt a new mantra: only bet if you can get a call from a worse hand or a fold from a better one. In other words, many players learn to bet only as either a value bet or as a bluff, leaving behind the concept of protection that cost them so many buy-ins when misapplied.

Yet this too is a mistake. Weak players often misapply the concept with expensive consequences, but that does not make the concept itself invalid.

Even in no-limit hold ’em, there are situations where betting for protection is appropriate, even if the bet will not get calls from worse hands or folds from better hands. The central consideration is whether the turn and river action is more likely to favor you or your opponent. If your hand is vulnerable, your opponents are unlikely to bluff, or it would be difficult for someone to turn a second-best hand, then it is often worth betting simply to take down the pot and avoid giving a free card.

Example #1

You are playing a 6-handed $.50/$1 NLHE game with $100 stacks. You open to $3.50 with A [diamond] K [spade] in middle position, and both blinds call. Your read is that they both play too loosely and are generally weak players who don’t put a lot of thought into their game.

The flop comes Q [club] 8 [spade] 4 [diamond]. Your opponents check. Do you bet?

I would argue that you should, even though hands worse than yours are unlikely to call, and better hands are unlikely to fold. Admittedly, there is some chance that 22 or 33 will fold, and some chance that JT or T9 will call, but that is just icing on the cake. The real reason to bet is that you will probably take it down often enough to show an immediate profit, whereas no obvious good will come from checking.

Players who are too loose pre-flop and too straight-forward post-flop are the best targets for a continuation bet. They simply give up too easily when they miss the flop, which happens often give the wide, weak ranges with which they call pre-flop. If each of these players folds approximately 2/3 of his range to a flop bet, then betting will win the pot immediately about 45% of the time. A bet of 2/3 pot needs to win 40% of the time to break-even, so such a bet would show a profit even ignoring the equity that AK has when called.

This establishes that betting is profitable. The only question, then, is whether checking would be even more profitable. Although we cannot be as precise in predicting what will happen on future streets, we can consider a few important factors:

> Implied Odds. Could one of your opponents who would have folded to a flop bet turn a second-best hand that will result in you winning a big pot? In this case, the most likely scenario would be if one of your opponents holds something like AJ and turns an A. In this scenario, you would likely win two bets that you would not have won had you bet the flop. With both of you holding an A, though, there are only two left in the deck, so this is not a particularly likely scenario.

There is also some risk of reverse implied odds. When an opponent holds KQ, turning a K costs you two bets. This is an even more unlikely scenario, but it does somewhat mitigate the above.

> Bluff-Catching. In addition to turning a second best hand, your opponent might be induced to put money into the pot with a hand worse than yours as a bluff. In this case, that is rather likely, as the turn could present several draws that an opponent might bet.

The problem is that your hand won’t generally be strong enough to call a turn bet. Thus, this is actually a bad thing for you and a reason to bet the flop. Against trickier and more aggressive opponents, betting the flop might also open you up to a (check-raise) bluff that you couldn’t call, but that is probably not a concern against these particular players.

> Bluffing. Will the turn present bluffing opportunities for you that weren’t present on the flop? It’s not likely. The best scare cards would be an A or K, but these would likely give you the best hand anyway. Plus, checking the flop makes it much harder to represent a strong hand.

Even if better hands won’t fold the flop, betting can help you to set up a multi-barrel bluff. Thus, to the extent that bluffing will be profitable on the turn or river, this is a reason to bet the flop, not to check it.

>Sucking Out. Although you will often have the best hand on the flop, it is extremely vulnerable not just to draws but to almost any card that pairs either opponent. 6 [club] 5 [club], for instance, has more than 40% equity against you and would be making a Fundamental Theorem of Poker mistake by folding the flop. That is, folding would not be the correct play with 6 [club] 5 [club] if your opponent could see that you held just AK. In short, you gain a lot of equity by betting the flop even if only worse hands fold.

There is also the chance that you could yourself suck out against a hand like 87 when you check the flop. Most likely 87 will just call if you bet the flop, though, so while the bet would cost you something, you’d still have the opportunity to suck out on a later street.

On balance, it doesn’t look like you have much if anything to gain by checking the flop. We know that betting is profitable, and in the absence of a compelling reason to do something else, you should go ahead and take the sure thing.

Example #2

You are playing a 6-handed $.50/$1 NLHE game with $100 stacks. You open to $3.50 with A [diamond] K [spade] in middle position, and only the big blind calls. Your read is that he is tight aggressive with an emphasis on tight. You believe his range for calling out of the small blind to be very narrow, most likely {77+,ATs+,KJs+,AJo+,KQo} with monster hands like QQ+ and AK discounted but not impossible.

The flop comes 2 [diamond] 4 [spade] 4 [diamond]. The big blind checks. Do you bet?

Let’s start by noting the similarities to the previous hand: you are ahead of your opponent’s range, but presumably better hands will not fold to a bet, and worse hands will not call. The latter isn’t actually a given on such a dry flop, but let’s assume that against this opponent it is. In other words, he will not call without a pair. Pairs make up barely 1/3 of his range, so he will fold often enough for a continuation bet to show an immediate profit.

Nonetheless, I believe you should check. Considering the same factors as before will demonstrate why:

>Implied Odds. Your AK dominates all of the hands that would have folded to a flop bet. Thus, if your opponent turns a pair, there is a 40% chance that you will have the same pair with a better kicker and consequently be in a position to win a large pot.

Unlike in the previous example, the risk of reverse domination is quite low. Only in the unlikely event that Villain holds AA or KK and you turn a second-bet hand could you end up losing two bets. What’s more, if he were to continue slowplaying his big pair when you bet the flop, then this scenario could easily occur anyway.

>Bluff-Catching. A very important difference between this example and the previous one is that this time your hand is good enough to call a turn bet. Given that you dominate your opponent’s unpaired range, your equity is very good against his bluffs. Thus, inducing a bluff is a potential source of profit for you this time around.

>Bluffing. Your bluffing opportunities aren’t great on the turn, but they are there. A Q or J would be somewhat scary for your opponent’s medium pairs. Your backdoor nut flush draw means that a diamond on the turn would give you a very strong semi-bluffing hand.

>Sucking Out. Although it may seem vulnerable, your hand is actually quite robust. His unpaired hands have just 3 outs against you, whereas you have 6 outs against most of his pairs. There are no draws to worry about, so giving a free card is unlikely to cost you the pot.

Betting the flop may actually set you up to get blown off of your outs if your opponent check-raises some or all of his pairs.

This time around, it looks like checking the flop is a good idea. The critical difference is that there is not so much you need to protect against in this example, and thus less of a need to bet for protection. When you are ahead, you are way ahead, and you will be able to call a bet on most turns. The odds of your opponent sucking out on you thanks to a free card are nearly the same as his odds of turning a dominated hand, so you don’t risk much at all by giving a free card.

You have barely 26% equity against your opponent’s range for calling a flop bet, so there is definitely a cost to putting money into the pot at this point in the hand. Add to that the risk of getting raised either by a pair or as a bluff, in which case you may end up folding away what equity you do have, and checking looks better and better.

Conclusion

While most of your bets in no-limt hold ’em should still be clearly classifiable as either bluffs or value bets, there are definitely situations where betting for protection makes sense. They key is to understand what you are trying to protect against and why. It isn’t just about locking up your equity in the pot, although that can be valuable. It’s about protecting yourself from bad turn and river situations where your opponents’ hands can improve but yours cannot or where you are liable to get bluffed.

Just because the fish do it doesn’t make it fishy. As with anything in poker, you need a well thought-out plan. With the right plan, though, you can and should add betting for protection to your repertoire.