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3 Bet Sizing Micro Stakes
Hello all newbie question so please bare with me!!
Trying to work on my 3 and 4 bet sizing recently looking at what size to make my bets and more importantly why I am making them the size I am! At the mo I feel like when im 3 betting or 4 betting im just making up a number without any real knowledge of why and how I got to that figure. Is alot of this player dependent or do some people have some kind of formula they use to calculate there 3 and 4 bet sizes?
Thanks in advance
Moon
Comments
Think about why you do it for a start, are you doing it for value because you think they'll call or raise with worse hands? Are you doing it as a bluff?
Other things to consider are position, stack sizes and your opponent. As you get more experienced you will get a better feel for sizing of bets and 3/4 bets. I found making 3 bets larger when out of position compared to when in position helps although the most important thing is knowing what you are doing and why as opposed to getting the bet sizing "perfect"
Matt
if you're doing it for a bluff then you have to make sure you're doing it against tight opponents who you feel are probably raising in position with the lower tier of their range. most tight regs at this level are gonna open with premiums anyway so probably best not to do it without a hand you're willing to go with. most people on NL4 tables probably aren't gonna fold if for instance:
they make it 20p, you make it 80p, if they only have 50 bigs behind you're probs gonna get shoved on. only a few players at that level you can do this to as a bluff imo.
i play you a fair bit you seem to be doing alright
so if someone raises to 12p make it 36p - if two callers and pot is 42p make it £1.20
3 bet for value 100% at micro to start with
if your playing versus deeper stacked player then you can 3/4 bet more, likewise if oppo is short stacked then 3/4 bet less
We're going to be taking a look at bet sizing in cash in tonight's Poker School. That's on channel 861 at 9pm.
I'll forward your post on to Richard Orford and Ryan Spittles and get them to answer it specifically for you in that hour!
All the best.
As for bet sizing make it 3x the pre-flop raise. So if the button open raises at NL4 to 20p make the 3-bet 60p. Then adjust this once you gather reads on the players. If you notice that a play always folds to any 3-bets unless they have a very good pre-flop hand regardless of the size of the 3-bet, then 3-bet them lots (obviously because it's free money) but make your 3-bets small. You will not be continuing with the hand if you get called so you want to make this situation cheep.
Similarly if you notice that a player will call 3-bets no matter what then you can reduce the frequency but increase the size of your 3-bet. So make it 4x the PFR but only with value hands.
The key thing about 3-bets is the implied odds that you are giving the other players. This is the ratio between the cost to call the 3-bet and the size of your stack. When 100BBs deep if you raise to 3x and get 3-bet to 9BBs it's 6BBs to win 100. So to profitably call a 3-bet you need to stack the player 6% of the time. Bad players love to set mine in 3-bet pots because they remember the times that they won a full stack with a pair of twos against a player with aces. Most of the time they will not flop a set and just lose yet more money, and sometimes they will flop a set and still lose.
So in short you want a 3-bet size that is consistant (so that you don't give away bet sizing tells to the observant), is big enough that you can play for stacks with premium hands without overbetting, and small enough that you can 3-bet bluff and c-bet without committing yourself. 3x the PFR is just the right size I think.
At the microstakes I find that 3-betting on its own isn't that effective as a bluff. Often players will call with the junkiest of hands just to "crack dem aces yo!". But 3-betting and then 50% c-bet on a dry flop can be very effective, especially in possition.
Thanks guys some great info there.
Just going back to a comment Pipunch made when he talked about 3 betting out of position and making it 4-5x the original raise as oppose to 3x in position, I have heard this talked about before and the explanation was it decreases our positional disadvantage and gives them less room for manoeuvre post flop? Not 100% sure what this means or how it would work in a hand??? (sorry if these are silly questions lol)
There could be considered an advantage to shortening the hand when you are out of possition. But in micro-stakes where players don't often fold anyway, I think the key to finding an edge is folding when you are behind in spots where poor players would go broke. Keeping pots small pre-flop will help with this.
just 3 bet big hands for value, don't bother bluffing yet )
what hands you 3 bet will depends on what hands oppo flat your 3 bet with
good luck, don't make it too complicated )