ventrolloquist
Visionary
Silver Level
Should you ever value bet on the flop against an opponent you suspect has a drawing hand? For example, you hold pocket aces on the flop but the flop is coordinated, is it right to give your opponent good odds to call (as a valuebet) or should you just try to steal the pot right there?
My gut feeling feeling is steal the pot. Because if you repeat each of the two scenarios several times I think you earn more by giving your opponent bad odds to call. But I'm looking at Doug Polk's preflop gameplan and I'm scratching my head because of an example in there where he says to value bet hands like AA & 44 on a Jh*8h*4h flop. I can only assume this is because the probability of one opponent holding at least one heart is about 40% making valuebetting a profitable move over half the time? But then again my grasp of statistics is abysmal so I'm not so sure my thinking is right. (and maybe villain might just fold if they didn't hold that heart so maybe I should ignore the 40% bit)
(Let's ignore any GTO balancing strategies for simplicitiy's sake and assume the opponent is eating a sandwich, and always calls if they have good odds / always folds with bad odds)
ps: I do realize giving villain odds to call in a heads-up match is a losing or breakeven proposition in the long run, but for the sake of my question i'm assuming other player's chips are in the pot and they've all folded making it potentially still profitable to value bet.
My gut feeling feeling is steal the pot. Because if you repeat each of the two scenarios several times I think you earn more by giving your opponent bad odds to call. But I'm looking at Doug Polk's preflop gameplan and I'm scratching my head because of an example in there where he says to value bet hands like AA & 44 on a Jh*8h*4h flop. I can only assume this is because the probability of one opponent holding at least one heart is about 40% making valuebetting a profitable move over half the time? But then again my grasp of statistics is abysmal so I'm not so sure my thinking is right. (and maybe villain might just fold if they didn't hold that heart so maybe I should ignore the 40% bit)
(Let's ignore any GTO balancing strategies for simplicitiy's sake and assume the opponent is eating a sandwich, and always calls if they have good odds / always folds with bad odds)
ps: I do realize giving villain odds to call in a heads-up match is a losing or breakeven proposition in the long run, but for the sake of my question i'm assuming other player's chips are in the pot and they've all folded making it potentially still profitable to value bet.