Narrowing the field

Here's something that needs clarification.

The standard opinion used to be that you should raise bets after the flop if you have a good hand to narrow the field and reduce the chances of someone else drawing a better hand on a later street.
There is a counter-opinion that says poker is about winning money through you opponents mistakes so it is better to keep more people in the pot because they are putting in money.

Which is correct?

Meh, neither are even remotely correct, really. There's a lot wrong with both statements but I'll just quickly go through the gist of it:

Generally speaking, we bet/raise when we think either worse is calling or better is folding. We do want to give bad odds for a player who is drawing, however they will often call anyway on the basis of implied odds. Thus we need to learn to fold in some situations where their draws "get there", and draws make up a sufficient portion of their range, so that we don't justify their earlier 'optimistic calls'. As you can see from this, we actually do want flush draws and such to call us when we have made hands; if we know we won't give them the implied odds, their initial calls will be incorrect.

As for 'keeping people in the pot', we may do this every now and then when we have very strong hands and feel that the other players have mostly garbage; so we can either check or bet smaller, perhaps inducing a bluff, and ultimately getting value we wouldn't have otherwise.

Obviously, theres a lot more to it than these two short paragraphs and I think you should probably spill the 20$ for NLHE Theory & Practice at this point in your learning curve.

Oh yeah, in b4 someone corrects me and tells me I'm an idiot.

Try not to base your play around grand generalizations. Posting specific situations is your best move in learning.

So start posting some hands.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

So start posting some hands.

THIS * 1000000000000000

Tasha, don't think you've ever posted a hand..?!

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Try not to base your play around grand generalizations. Posting specific situations is your best move in learning.

So start posting some hands.

On the contrary, that's exactly why I don't post hands and I am deliberately trying to learn the general principles. Every hand is unique, and learning what to do for that specific hand only helps a little.
But the right strategy for any hand is always based on more general principles that will then help you on other hands you haven't seen before.

pretty terrible reason for not posting hands. In the same vein , your original question they are both correct and both wrong depending upon the situation. Posting hands will help you understand how to apply the different principles in different situations.

If you flop quads , do you want to thin the field or keep more people in the pot and let them try and catch up whilst putting money in the pot .If you are dealt AA do you want to go multiway and increase the chance of getting beaten , or raise to thin the field and hopefully stack someone headsup.

post your hands where you weren't sure what to do , and give reasoons for acting as you did. Find out if you are applying the correct principles in the corect situations.

Originally Posted by Keith_MM

pretty terrible reason for not posting hands. In the same vein , your original question they are both correct and both wrong depending upon the situation. Posting hands will help you understand how to apply the different principles in different situations.

If you flop quads , do you want to thin the field or keep more people in the pot and let them try and catch up whilst putting money in the pot .If you are dealt AA do you want to go multiway and increase the chance of getting beaten , or raise to thin the field and hopefully stack someone headsup.

post your hands where you weren't sure what to do , and give reasoons for acting as you did. Find out if you are applying the correct principles in the corect situations.

this+ general principles suck

I have improved so much since i started posting hands that i cant even comprehend why someone wouldnt want to do the same.

Tasha,if your not going to take the advice of these people^^^then your probably not going to listen when you do post hands anyway.Which is sad because I've found that they have some very valuable things to say.Forget what you think you know and start letting them teach you.

Post moar hands

Knowledge without application, useless, etc.

Application without knowledge is bad too though O:

"This is an excellent post as well. People want instructions, "in this spot do X" that's what they want to hear, and that's what they follow. Why? Because its a lot easier than figuring out why and when to apply something. Its simpler to just say "oh ok, do X here, ill remember that ez game""

from a 2+2 post on micros

It's really a matter of how much you can make by slowplaying and not raising (above what raising would net you) vs the cost and probability you will be outdrawn. It's also extremely opponent dependent... so it depends :P

like kiwi and icanhastreebet say it's more important to know the merits of doing something. Then when you are in a new and unique situation (which as you say, every hand is too an extent.) you can think about spots and make logical decisions to be +ev even though you've never been in this situation b4.

If it will make you all happy I'll try and post some interesting hands.

As for the original question, there is another aspect to it:
The pot size tends to increase dramatically on later streets, making the earlier betting less significant. That would be another reason to narrow the field quickly because it isn't worth keeping other players in beyond the flop because the amount they bet isn't worth the risk.

Originally Posted by Tasha

If it will make you all happy I'll try and post some interesting hands.

As for the original question, there is another aspect to it:
The pot size tends to increase dramatically on later streets, making the earlier betting less significant. That would be another reason to narrow the field quickly because it isn't worth keeping other players in beyond the flop because the amount they bet isn't worth the risk.

pot size only increases dramatically if you bet on earlier streets, making betting earlier and building a pot more significant. That would be another reason to build a big pot when you're trying to get max value ____________I'm sorry, that last part doesn't seem like english.

Originally Posted by Imthenewfish

pot size only increases dramatically if you bet on earlier streets, making betting earlier and building a pot more significant. That would be another reason to build a big pot when you're trying to get max value ____________I'm sorry, that last part doesn't seem like english.

I think we are agreeing here for different reasons.
Not sure what you mean about the English, although I dare say it could have been phrased better.

we bet for value or as a bluff, the field narrowing is just a side-effect :/