Not Having A Plan

One of the most common mistakes players can make at any stage of the
tournament is not having a plan when they make a bet.

For instance, let say you flop the nuts and would like to get all the chips in by
the river. You need to start thinking about your bet sizing right now, so you can
manipulate the size of the pot so that come the river your all-in shove looks
natural to the size of the pot.

Here’s an example (blinds are 50/100 ante 12 and the effective stack is 5,000):

(Cutoff) Hero: A♠ 5♠

(Button) Villain: [?] [?]

Hero raises to 250 and the button calls, both blinds fold (pot = 746 )

Flop: K♠ 9♠ 3♠

Hero bets 500 and the villain calls (pot = 1,746)

Turn: 5♦

Hero bets 1,000 and the villain calls (pot = 3,746)

River: Q♦

Hero goes all-in for 3,250 and villain calls

By the river the stacks are such that the Hero has less than pot behind and can
comfortably shove all-in. Had our hero sized down to ~one quarter pot on the
flop – say a bet of 175, very tempting to do this with the board locked up – then
it would have been so much harder to get the chips in on the river.

Of course the above scenario is one of the nice choices to have there are much
tougher scenarios where you need to have a plan, such as semi-bluffing on the
flop with a draw that you then miss on the turn and river. Before you put any
chips into a pot think about how you’re going to react to what your opponent(s)
do.