Betting for information....

Dear all fellow BCers,

I have seen this reply in several threads now, where someone says you should bet/raise here so you can narrow down his range. WRONG.

Very Wrong. Why?

Let's say you were up against a player that would call any one bet no matter how large in relation to the pot, i.e., he would go all in with 72o preflop if you opened shoved for 100bb. But, to call another bet he would need to have the nut.

How do you make the most money out of this guy? You don't bet for information, you bet to make money. All bets a are about making money, e.g. +EV. Information is ALWAYS the by product, not to motive.

With an infinite bankroll you would open shove k3o+ on this guy.

!luck

It depends. In big bet games 100bb deep, the effects on EV for traditional value bet/bluffing considerations usually dominate the EV gained from information, but that's not always the case. It's similar to how betting to give someone bad odds to draw is often correct in limit games if they're only able to correctly call with better hands, but in big bet games 100bb deep it's almost always bad.

is it ok to raise for information if you feel you are in an RIO spot and it is cheaper to put in a little flop lead or IP raise (say villain is religiously straightforward and doesn't bluff) than to call two+ streets?

say you have 35% equity versus villains range OOP on the flop and he bets pot.
the turn bricks and he bets pot again.
versus a PSB you need 33.3% equity to break even. you have 35% so calling is +EV in theory but when you call his turn bet you stand to lose more on the river when you are behind than you gain when you are ahead because you are OOP and cant guage villain's hand strength/tendences (as well as he can yours) etc etc. villain can go ahead and check behind if he wants. or he can make a value bet of 1/2 pot with his flopped set vs your face up TPTK.

this seems logical to me but maybe its just because i have OOPophobia

now i think about it. it is just me sucking at forming ranges and hating being OOP which makes that ^ theory seem sensible. if you are a genius and know villains exact ranges and the combos it contains you can obviously play perfectly against him.

Originally Posted by rpm

is it ok to raise for information if you feel you are in an RIO spot and it is cheaper to put in a little flop lead or IP raise (say villain is religiously straightforward and doesn't bluff) than to call two+ streets?

say you have 35% equity versus villains range OOP on the flop and he bets pot.
the turn bricks and he bets pot again.
versus a PSB you need 33.3% equity to break even. you have 35% so calling is +EV in theory but when you call his turn bet you stand to lose more on the river when you are behind than you gain when you are ahead because you are OOP and cant guage villain's hand strength/tendences (as well as he can yours) etc etc. villain can go ahead and check behind if he wants. or he can make a value bet of 1/2 pot with his flopped set vs your face up TPTK.

this seems logical to me but maybe its just because i have OOPophobia

Perhaps you have a hand history you want to share?

i used to think betting for information was like such a sick strategy when i was really bad... as i get slightly better it seems worse n worse... maybe in like really odd spots vs spazzes itd be good i dunno, generally seems dumb

You bet for value.
Part of it is value from the chance of winning a showdown.
Part of it is value from the chance of winning without a showdown.
Part of it is value from knowing what he has.

The value of knowing what he has is only present if it helps you win more at showdown or win more often without showdown. USUALLY the value of knowing what he has is...
1) not great enough to justify putting money in for information alone - it is an anxilliary reason for betting at best. It's wisest in almost all cases to attribute the value of information as 0 when you calculate your EV
2) overestimated - one action from him can mean more than one thing - so you put money in to get information and the information you get can mean multiple things - not such a great deal
3) sometimes wrong - through you being leveled or leveling yourself the information that you pay dearly for may in fact cause you to lose showdown value or get him to fold less often, because the adjustment you make is either the wrong one for the information or the wrong one for the actual state of affairs that the information you paid for does not correctly reflect.