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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by shuttle (Micro/Small Stakes)

Why isn't it a bluff if JJ folds?

We have 50% equity vs the range we're trying to fold out (since we know he never folds AK).

So the reason we don't just check through is because he has a balanced shoving range when checked to, hence we 'bet for protection'.

But yes, our hand is bluffing out the JJ combo.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Maybe I am getting my head around this 'bet for protection' now

I cannot wait until the next episode as the comment about "his had being perfectly balanced" is important to understanding how protection bets really work.

Because his hand is perfectly balance, we are betting for protection. This will only male sense to me when I understand what being "balanced" is.

When I say his bet is balanced, I mean he is bluffing with a frequency that makes us indifferent to calling or folding. There is a slide where shuttle talks about how his range makes our call a 0 EV play. Folding also has 0 EV. His balanced bet has put us in a situation where we cannot make money.

Time Link to 00:33:08

Ok, but if our opponent will FOLD the JJ to our shove, aren't we, in essence, getting him to fold BETTER, as we have the 5's, making the value we are getting here, from a bluff, not protection?

Sorry, I'm struggling some to wrap my head around this protection bet concept some. Thanks!

Yeah, we are getting him to fold a better combo in this example.

It's merely a matter of definitions. We have 50% vs the range we aim to fold. If it was less than that we'd call it a bluff.

Given that we have 50% equity, if we were in position we would could check back for the same EV we get from shoving. Unfortunately when we check here OOP, villain makes a balanced bet which we can't get EV from.

It's a contrived example to illustrate the idea of betting 'for protection', simply because it prevents your opponent from doing something.

It's very rare you can legitimately bet for protection on the river though, most of the time when you bet for protection, you gain by from making your opponent fold out equity when it's less than yours. On the river it just happens that every hand worse than yours has 0% equity, so you can't really gain from folding them out, unless they are capable of making a perfectly balanced bet using those combos worse than your hand as bluffs.

Ok... I am getting pretty lost here lol Math was never my strong point...

I'm trying to do the Test Hand. If we say for example villain is only calling with TT I get this.

Pr(Villain fold) = 3/4 = .75 (75%)
Amount won when villain folds = 100

Pr(Villain Calls) = 1/4 = .25 (25%)

Pr(We Win) = .58 (57.97% from Poker Stove)
Pr(We Lose) = .42 (42.03% from Poker Stove)

Amount won when villain calls and we win = 700

Amount lost when villain calls and we lose = 300

Put all this in to the formula and I get this:

= .75*100 + .25*(.58*700-.42*300)
= 75 + .58*(280)
= 75 + 162.4 = 237.4

I hope this is correct as my brain now hurts!

Have to say this is a great series though and it's about time I knuckled down to some of the math.

To me this means this is more of a value bet as we win more on the value side of the calculation.

However because we have fold equity and win when the villain folds it is also a protection hand.

Hope i'm going in the right direction, i've tried not to read everyone elses post as I wanted to try and do it on my own :S

The "700" is not correct. You read the examples right however they are wrong as they explained earlier. The amount won is $400. You can only win what you are actually gaining not what you are "putting up."

Because you are preventing the villain from making a move that would cause you to have a 0 EV you are "protecting"yourself. "protection bet"

In the event that you call.... you do not gain the fold equity that is so high in this situation and when you fold, you obviously have 0 EV because you have no way to win the pot.

I hope this helps as I was just as confused as you were!

Hiya Astute,

Thanks very much for that, that makes sense

Well off I tootle to watch Episode three and hurt my grey matter again

Time Link to 00:13:00

This slide is incorrect. Our total is 51, not 100.5. We only net 101 when villain calls.

I saw that this was addressed some in the comments and perhaps covered in the next video, but I thought there should be something in the timeline to avoid confusion for future viewers.

Time Link to 00:20:41

The 79% own equity is if the six TT combos are still in villains range. However since you assume he folds TT to your flop shove, your equity is no longer 79% but 74%, becuase you are in much better shape against TT than against KQ or 87. This also means that in the following slide you must multiply the winnings with 0.74 and not with 0,79.

Yes, this is a mistake. I made a post earlier with the correct calculation.

I like this video because it definitely helps me to understand the math behind the decisions I make ESPECIALLY when I am bluffing or Semi Bluffing.

I like this video because it definitely helps me to understand the math behind the decisions I make ESPECIALLY when I am bluffing or Semi Bluffing.

thanks

Time Link to 00:24:26

could we also say that protection betting "works better" (not in a more +EV kind of way) against better opponents, because they fold more draws when they're not getting correct odds, whereas loose players call those all the time (what is a valuebet then, but not really a protection bet), but on the other hand loose players have more dead money in their range anyways.

Hi,

Two mistakes in video.

In a first hand (12m32s) you put $200 as amount won, and it should be $100.

In 33m10s. You said before, that in pure protecting, opponent will never fold a better hand. So JJ should be is his calling range. So EV for check/call and shove are the same.

Would it be possible to put an errata on this and other vids that contain notable errors? Or a highlighted warning notice at the top of the page to alert people that there are errors. There's always the chance that if someone downloads to watch they'll never see the comments and, here for example, that would lead to them going away with a fundamental misunderstanding of EV calcs.

Hey guys,

Does it make a difference if you use the value part of the formula given here:
Pr(Villain Call)*[Pr(We win)*(Amount Won) - Pr(Lose)*(Amount Lost)]

or the one you gave in the last episode?

Pr(opponent calls)*[(size of the new pot)*(our equity) - (size of our call)]

I find the second one way easier to use (and just sub in "size of our bet" etc instead) and it's been coming out to the same amount for the examples so far, so I'm just double checking they're both essentially the same thing or if there's a specific reason you swapped.

Also +1 to the idea of more clearly highlighting the mistakes in the video. I was scratching my head for a few minutes thinking I'd been incorrectly applying the concept of EV for years until I delved deeper into the comments

Mitch, Wilt On Tilt in his maths series uses both methods, too, and explains they give the same result but that he prefers the longer way. Must admit I forget why, think it's along the lines of it being more easily adapted to more complicated equations.

Hey guys,

Does it make a difference if you use the value part of the formula given here:
Pr(Villain Call)*[Pr(We win)*(Amount Won) - Pr(Lose)*(Amount Lost)]

or the one you gave in the last episode?

Pr(opponent calls)*[(size of the new pot)*(our equity) - (size of our call)]

I find the second one way easier to use (and just sub in "size of our bet" etc instead) and it's been coming out to the same amount for the examples so far, so I'm just double checking they're both essentially the same thing or if there's a specific reason you swapped.

They are the same, there's a comment by huntse in the comments for episode 1 that proves that they are indeed the same:

First let's derive the second formula and then I'll show how they're the same. Expectation (EV) is just a weighted sum of all possible payoffs weighted by their probability. So there are a lot of possible ways of expressing that which are all identical. As long as they are, you can use whichever is most convenient.

So if you shove 100 into 1, there are three outcomes

1) Villain folds & we win 1
2) Villain calls & we loose 100
3) Villain calls & we win 101

So weighted by probability these are

1) %fold * pot
2) %call * - amountloose * looseEquity
3) %call * amountWin * WinEquity

It's easy to see you can add those up, factor out the common %call and get

EV = (%fold*pot) + call%[(AmountWin*WinEquity) - (AmountLoose*LooseEquity)]

...and since LooseEquity is just 1- WinEquity it follows that is the same as

EV = (%Fold*pot) + call%[(WinEquity*NewPot) - AmountLoose)]

Don't believe me? Let's just look at the bit inside the "call%" for a sec and show it step by step.

(AmountWin * winEquity) - (AmountLoose * LooseEquity)

substitute 1-winEquity for LooseEquity

(AmountWin * winEquity) - (1-WinEquity)(AmountLoose)

Multiply out the bit in the brackets

AmountWin * winEquity - AmountLoose + WinEquity * AmountLoose

group the "winEquity" terms together.

WinEquity (Amountwin + AmountLoose) - AmountLoose

But what is "AmountWin + AmountLoose" ? why, amountWin is his call + the initial pot and amountLoose is our bet. And our bet + his call + the initial pot is the new pot size. So the two formulae are the same.

Protection bets are part of a continuum...
mind = blown

Protection bets are part of a continuum...
mind = blown

hopefully your mind being blown is a good thing?

hopefully your mind being blown is a good thing?

Hehe ya well I have read a shit tones of poker books and they often talk about reasons to bet... but the concept of it being a continuum as opposed to 3 mutually exclusive reasons is something I never thought about before.