Protection

When I was a kid, back in high school, and my cronies and I first began playing poker for money on a regular basis, one of the first concepts I learned was "protecting your hand." Back then, all we played was seven-card stud, in which a double-sized bet was permitted on fourth street if anyone had a pair showing, and the reason for the double bet was to enable anyone holding a pair to protect his hand. Anyway, that's what Bobby told me. And why should I have doubted the guy who offered me that poker advice? He was three years older than I, much wiser in the ways of the world, manipulated his poker chips like a guy who knew what he was doing, and impressed all of us 15-year-olds with his ability to hot-wire any car he decided to take for a joy ride.

Somehow, I suspect that many poker players still think of protecting a hand in these terms: betting out the maximum allowable amount on fourth street so that anyone thinking of chasing down your pair has to think twice because the price just doubled. But there's much more to protection than that. After all, sometimes you want to knock out certain callers while encouraging others to pay the price to chase you.

This happens all the time in no-limit and pot-limit games, in which you have the latitude of manipulating the size of the pot by the size of your bet. When you do this correctly, you can establish the pot odds offered to your opponent – the very odds he must consider in relation to the odds against making his hand before he decides to call – and that's something you can't do very well in a limit game. Let's say you flopped top set in a no-limit game, but the board contains two hearts.

You can bet whatever you have in front of you, and because this is a theoretical example, we'll assume that you have millions stacked up and that the pot is small by comparison. If the pot is a couple of hundred or even a couple of thousand dollars, it doesn't make a difference when you have a million dollars or more at your disposal. If you push all of your chips into the pot, you're probably not going to be called, and if you are, your opponent is likely to have the nuts with a redraw to an even bigger hand. Nevertheless, if you bet some trifling, miniscule amount, you can count on being called by anyone with a draw who is hoping that a bargain-basement miracle completes his hand, while the imaginary cash register in his mind rings up all the money he's hoping to win when those implied odds are realized.

Both of these polar extremities can hurt you. But somewhere in the middle ground, there is a bet size that will accomplish your objective: to drive out all the draws that might beat you while encouraging those who have lesser hands with little or no chance of improving to call. While you're sitting there deciding what to do with your set, you should be trying to land on that theoretical betting amount that will not permit drawing hands to overcome the cost of the draw, while encouraging anyone else with top pair, or two pair, to call.

The size of that precise betting amount is subject to a number of contingencies, including how willing your opponents are to take the worst of it in order to try running you down. At a minimum, the size of your bet needs to be sufficient enough to reduce the payoff odds to less than 1.86-to-1, the odds against making a flush draw. If you bet an amount of money that gives your opponent only a bit more than 1-to-1, you've manipulated the pot odds to the point where he can't logically call.

Another form of protecting your hand comes into play whenever you flop a straight or flush draw and your hand contains overcards to the flop. If you have the A 10, the flop is 9 6 3, and there's a bet and a couple of callers with players still to act after you do, you ought to think about raising. Many players will not consider this because they fear chasing away "customers" if they make a flush. That's OK if the pot is small, but if it's a nice size, try to win it as soon as possible. Anytime you are able to eliminate opponents with a raise, your chances of winning the pot will improve.

No, eliminating opponents won't make your nut flush any more likely to come in, but fewer opponents may enable you to win even if you miss your flush but pair your ace or 10. When you do that, more money goes into the pot because you raised, and you might drive off some opponents who would have called a single bet but not a raise. The act of eliminating opponents makes some of your outs – other than those to the flush – more effective. A pair of aces with a 10 kicker might hold up to win the pot against two or three opponents, but it stands a smaller chance against a larger field. Your monetary win will probably not diminish by the disappearance of some opponents, either, because your raise will get more money into the pot, albeit from fewer adversaries. And the cost is just one bet, a small price to pay for an increased likelihood of winning the pot.

While the idea of "protecting your hand" seems defensive – the word "protection" connotes defending something and sounds inherently passive – hand protection in poker is anything but that. When you bet out or raise, you are protecting your hand via a pre-emptive strike, and there's nothing passive about it. KO your opponents now, before they have a chance to slide into the fray on the cheap and draw out on you.

Raise your game with Lou at http://www.royalvegaspoker.com. His newest book, Winning Omaha/8 Poker, is available at www.Cardplayer.com.