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Bet Sizing - The Fundamentals
There are always a lot of questions about bet sizing in the Poker Clinic and now having seen it come up a lot in Devonfish's recent diary revival, I thought I'd put together a post giving my (limited) input on some of the fundamentals you need to be thinking about when sizing your bets.
A few things to point out before I start... This guide is only going to discuss postflop betting and certain parts may seem more relevant to cash games where stacks are deeper but most of it applies to any hand you play in any format of poker.
Last point before we really get started but a very important one... Don't use the post-flop betting buttons (½ pot, ¾ pot and full pot). If you're always using these buttons then it just shows you're not thinking enough about how much you're betting and why you chose that particular amount.
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It might sound like a long list and a lot to think about but most of these things either already are or will become second nature with practice so here are the factors you need to take into account when deciding how much to bet...
1) Our hand and our perceived range
2) The board
3) The opponent's range
4) Reads on the opponent
5) Stack/Pot Ratio
6) Number of opponents
As a general 'default' I'd suggest all of your bets being in the range of 60-70% of the pot but the factors above may mean you should increase or decrease that figure.
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Our hand and our perceived range - Well the first part of this is pretty self explanatory. The second part is only relevant when you're playing a pot against an opponent that you think is actually putting you on a range. If they are then you should think about what our range looks like to the opponent. Depending on how strong/weak our perceived range is V their range, you can adapt your sizing to get the result you want.
The board - The board texture is one of the most important factors in choosing a bet sizing. On very dry boards we want to bet smaller than normal because flops like K27r are impossible for your opponent to have any immediate (non-backdoor) draws and it's a flop that is going to miss most ranges a lot of the time. For this reason betting smaller achieves two things:
1) When we are value betting, a smaller bet will get called by a wider range (so we get calls more often)
2) When we are bluffing, it's much cheaper to do so and a smaller bet should be just as effective because it's such a hard flop for your opponent to hit.
Conversely on very wet flops we should bet bigger than normal. Wet flops like 89Qss or AJThh hit the range of hands that most people like to play way more than the flop mentioned above. On flops like this, people will have lots of hands like 1pr, 2pr, 1pr + FD, 1pr + straight draw, sets, nut flush draws, OESD. So again the reason we go bigger is two fold:
1) When we're value betting, it's SO much more likely people have a hand they want to continue with.
2) When we're bluffing, again people have hands they want to continue with more often and we need to put more pressure on them to get them off the lower end of their ranges.
The opponent's range - Putting your opponent on a range allows you to have an idea of how strong/weak they are in a hand. If judging by earlier streets we can pretty much guarantee they have a strong hand that they're not gonna fold and we're sitting there with a massive hand then obv we can go really big with our sizing. Conversely if we think they have some sort of made hand but it can't stand much heat like 2nd pr/TPNK then we can go a little bit smaller to keep in these weaker hands.
Reads on the opponent - Reads on an opponent are very important and you'll only get an idea for what you can get away with by trial and error (and watching opponents when they play hands with other people), but obviously some players are a bit more on the stationy side than others. Against good players it can be important to be balanced with your sizings, against others they just simply won't notice. If they don't even notice you betting 60% pot with bluffs and 80% for value then go for it.
Stack/Pot Ratio - Unless stacks are vv deep when it's just not possible, we generally want to be setting ourselves up so that when we get to the river we can (although we don't necessarily have to) shove for a little under a pot sized bet. Not only does it mean we've set ourselves up to get it in by the river without overbetting but it also puts the max pressure on the opponent knowing that if he calls the turn, he is likely to be facing a bet for the rest of his stack on the river. Also, if you get into a 3bet pot with someone who only has say 40xBB and you flop very very strong then you can often go something like 30% pot, 30% pot, 30% pot and that's enough to get it in by the river while keeping his range as wide as possible... going smaller in these shallower stacked pots also allows us to run multi street bluffs and still get away. So you should be thinking right from the start 'what kind of sizings do I need to use to get it in by the river?'
Number of opponents - Generally, the more people there are in the pot, the bigger we should go. When we're going for value then there are just that many more ranges out there to have hit the board so higher chance of getting calls and so we get max value going bigger. Multi way pots are harder to get folds from everyone so when we're bluffing we're also using bigger sizings to put max pressure on our opponents.
This felt a bit rushed and I'm no Galfond so no doubt I missed stuff or didn't explain certain things very well so feel free to all chip in with any things you think need adding and I'll stick them in the OP.
Comments
OMG so much bad advice in there, to start
1) The paragraph titled "Number of opponents " Is just an awful blanket generalisation.
If your not going to bother relating it to important details such as position/board texture/villain tendencies then don't bother writing it at all.
Those that are aware don't need educating, and those that are not aware will end up in a world of trouble if they just blindly try and implement the advice given in that paragraph.
For example, reading that paragraph in a vacuum, a newbie would be forgiven for thinking they should try and 2xpot bet bluff at a 7h8h9h board in a family pot whilst holding black treys.
2) The factors you say are worth thinking about when deciding how much to bet. You forgot to mention position!
3) "As a general 'default' I'd suggest all of your bets being in the range of 60-70% of the pot but the factors above may mean you should increase or decrease that figure."
Are you kidding me?? a 60-70% default, just what on earth are you on about? Fine, we might want a standard kind of contin bet range, but aside from that, this is a terrible statement.
So you bet the same on K72r as you do on QJThhh or you bet the same against someone who can't fold bottom pr that you would bet against someone that's a massive nit?
Totally contradicting yourself!
Top of the Posts nomination coming up
one question I have is in relation to AA KK QQ JJ and AK.
knowing that most nl4 these days will only ever 3bet with AA and possibly KK, it makes calling a 3 bet with Ak QQ and JJ a total waste.
so although calling a 3bet with them is bad should I still do a 3bet with them when it has been open bet before the betting got to me?
nice post Paul,
yes I've read it. how much sinks in is anybody's guess. he he
thanks for taking the time & effort, I know this is partly for my benefit and it's much appreciated.
( i'll try doing better from today onwards)
dev
one of the things with these now is I'm not as intent on getting good value from them as I used to be not in cash, the reason being is calling stations fish and maniacs are not on very much, tables now are likely to have villain who play the hit miss game, so instead of getting the weaker hands to fold, I'm thinking why not just call it pre and if he were to check I just do a bet with this hand like I would with most others and take it down now that way I know their is still weaker hands in the villians range too.
that doesn't mean I'm always calling, say for instance their is just a min bet and it has been called by most then I am definitely doing a 3bet as I don't want too many involved post flop and with SC well they are good with lots of callers anyway.
Also 3-betting your prems pre we are doing it to get max value, also 3 betti ng makes it easier to get stacks in on/before the river.This is called pot building. Remember that players 3-bet calling ranges will be far more wider then their actual 3-betting range. It really looks like you are levelling yourself. Also it sounds like you are playing with scared money, maybe due to a small bankroll.
Yes, yes you can with 90% certainty. TinTin was a crazy nit when playing 4nl
Craig has this spot on, and since he plays 4nl day in day out, is is in a much better position to comment than yourself.
I do mean people who ONLY use them buttons like. If you click the 1/2 pot button to get you in the right ballpark and then adjust the amount manually that's fine.
today I saw a person raise to just 8p when he had 99 but when he had AA he open raised to 28p and that was the very same villain I have with hand 1.