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14/01/2012 PKR A rough guide to bet sizing

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A rough guide to bet sizing

Why betting half-pot to full-pot usually makes sense, and what we are trying to
achieve with our bet-sizing

By Nick Wealthall on Friday 13 Nov 2009 13:15

Part of the following series: It's a betting game

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Chip stack in a line

Deciding how much to bet makes a huge difference each and every
hand in no-limit hold em

No-limit hold em is a fascinating and subtle game which has wholeheartedly

taken over the world of poker. One of the reasons for all the excitement is the
ability to get all your chips in on any given hand, but the best players know that
the real importance is being able to choose the size of your bets. Good
players are excellent at understanding the range of weapons this puts at their
disposal and can adjust their bet sizes to achieve whatever they want in a
given situation. Weaker players do not pay attention to bet-sizing, causing
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14/01/2012 PKR A rough guide to bet sizing

them to lose value in some spots and give up too many chips in other spots
where they re losing.

All bet-sizing should be understood in relation to the pot, as that s what we re

trying to win when we bet. The other way of understanding a bet is in relation to
the effective stack (which is the smaller of ours or our opponent s) but most of
your bets will be dictated by the size of the pot

Wha i a anda d be ?
When people refer to a standard bet they mean anything from half the pot up
to the full size of the pot. There are several reasons for this but all of them
relate to the bet size being right to achieve what we re trying to when betting,
which is what you should think about when choosing your bet size.

If you re value-betting betting a hand when you want a call from a worse hand
then a standard bet size will often extract the maximum, making sense in
relation to the pot and what your opponent can win. It also often offers your
opponent the wrong price to draw for the next card. So let s say the pot is
$100 and you bet $60. Your opponent has a flush draw and has to call $60
into a pot of $160 he is getting odds of 2.6-to-1 on his call when his true
odds of hitting his flush on the next card are close to 4-to-1.

When bluffing betting when you want your opponent to fold you want to bet
the minimum you need to achieve this result. Again, this is a bet that makes
sense in relation to the pot. If you bet $20 into that $100 dollar pot your
opponent is getting a great price to draw to improve his hand or even to find
out if his weak hand is ahead. You re very unlikely to get a fold. However, once
you start betting $50 or more your opponent has a real decision to make and
your bluff may be successful.

Small be
It s a generalisation, but usually a correct one, that good players don t make
small bets (by small bets we mean less than half the size of the pot). Small
bets aren t often used because they don t make opponents fold better hands,
they don t extract maximum value when you re winning and they give other
players too cheap a price to draw to a better hand. However, like everything in
poker there are situations where they can be used to good effect.

One use of smaller bets is to extract value in spots where you re sure an
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opponent has a weak hand and you re comfortably winning the hand. If you
make a normal-sized bet you will always get a fold, but they may pay off a
small bet out of curiosity. Let s say you ve had the lead in a hand, which you ve
been semi-bluffing with a flush draw and your opponent has been calling. On
the river the flush arrives and your opponent checks again. If it s an opponent
who plays their marginal hands weakly this way and almost never has a big
hand in this spot, you may make the most money by making a small value bet
to make him curious with a one or even two-pair hand. It s important not to
overdo this though, because you only need one big bet to be called to equal
many of these smaller bets being paid off.
Defensive bets

You can also use small bets as defensive or blocking bets. These can be
used either to set the price of continuing when you have a drawing hand
(hopefully stopping your opponent from charging too high a price with a bet
size of his choosing), or to prevent yourself being bluffed off a winning hand
on the river if you check. Blocking bets are a great tool against weaker players
but stronger players will often attack them, putting you in some very difficult
spots.

Another reason for using small bets is to reopen the action in an attempt to
induce errors from your opponents. For example, you ve called a three-bet
from an aggressive opponent who is in the big blind when you raised on the
button with Aces. The flop is 4d-5c-8h and your opponent bets. You have
several options here and often the best line is to make a normal raise.
However another option is to make a small bet in the form of a minimum raise.
If he s an okay aggressive player this will often encourage him to shove in this
spot with a variety of losing hands, thinking your min-raise bet is weak.

Big be
A big bet can defined as a bet that is close to pot-sized or larger. It s rare to
see a bet bigger than the pot from experienced players, unless it s an all-in bet
or a bet made to set another player in. Making big bets (also known as
overbets) doesn t make sense in most situations, because if you re trying to
get paid there comes a point where your opponent will only call if you re in dire
trouble. Making big bets to bluff is often a mistake because you re risking
more chips without changing the result (in most cases). That is, you could
have made a smaller bet and achieved the same number of folds. That s not
to say there aren t times when big bets aren t a valid option though.

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Using big bets to our advantage

Big bets can be used to gain maximum value when you run into a drawing
hand and think your opponent will pay over the odds to continue. Let s say the
pot is $100 and a normal value bet would be around $70. In this spot if you
make a value bet of $140 you need to get called half as often to make the
same money. Therefore if you are in a hand or against an opponent where it
seems that the size of the bet is not the key factor as to whether they re calling
or folding, you should often be betting more. In fact, your value bet should be
as big as you think possible without strongly affecting how often you get
called. This price will vary depending on the hand and your opponent. After all,
if you would have been called for more than the amount you actually bet, that
money is coming straight off your profits.

Over-bluffing
The other use of overbets is as an act of raw naked aggression when it s a
bluff you think your opponent just can t call. This is particularly useful in
tournament situations when a player sets another player all-in for more than the
pot, either because he has a stack a bit bigger than the pot or the bettor thinks
his opponent can t make the call for his tournament life . Here s an example of
one of the best in action, as Tom durrrr Dwan forces his opponent off the
winning bet by making a bet he just can t call despite suspecting he s ahead.

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