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One of the most basic factors in poker is the protection of your own hand. You often bet or raise with the intention of giving bad odds to a hand that could have a lot of outs against you, thus forcing your opponent to make an incorrect call or to give up - these bets are called protection bets.

A protection bet is a bet (or a raise) that tries to protect your hand against weaker hands which could have some potential outs against you: if you didn't bet, your opponent can see the next card way too easily.

For instance, if you check out of position, villain can take a free card, and if you just call in position, you give him a cheap card. You should try to prevent this whenever you think you're ahead but have some scare cards you don't want to see on the next street.

In this article, you will learn what you have to protect against, how much you should bet and when you should avoid a protection bet.