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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 toachieve with our bet-sizing

By Nick Wealthall on Friday 13 Nov 2009 13:15

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

0RecommendChip stack in a line

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

No-limit hold’em is a fascinating and subtle game which has wholeheartedlytaken over the world of poker. One of the reasons for all the excitement is theability to get all your chips in on any given hand, but the best players know thatthe real importance is being able to choose the size of your bets. Goodplayers are excellent at understanding the range of weapons this puts at theirdisposal and can adjust their bet sizes to achieve whatever they want in agiven situation. Weaker players do not pay attention to bet-sizing, causing

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

All bet-sizing should be understood in relation to the pot, as that’s what we’retrying to win when we bet. The other way of understanding a bet is in relation tothe effective stack (which is the smaller of ours or our opponent’s) but most ofyour bets will be dictated by the size of the pot

What is a standard bet?

When people refer to a ‘standard’ bet they mean anything from half the pot upto the full size of the pot. There are several reasons for this but all of themrelate 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 inrelation to the pot and what your opponent can win. It also often offers youropponent 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 $60into a pot of $160 – he is getting odds of 2.6-to-1 on his call when his trueodds 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 betthe minimum you need to achieve this result. Again, this is a bet that makessense in relation to the pot. If you bet $20 into that $100 dollar pot youropponent is getting a great price to draw to improve his hand or even to findout if his weak hand is ahead. You’re very unlikely to get a fold. However, onceyou start betting $50 or more your opponent has a real decision to make andyour bluff may be successful.

Small bets

It’s a generalisation, but usually a correct one, that good players don’t makesmall bets (by small bets we mean less than half the size of the pot). Smallbets 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 otherplayers too cheap a price to draw to a better hand. However, like everything inpoker 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 youmake a normal-sized bet you will always get a fold, but they may pay off asmall bet out of curiosity. Let’s say you’ve had the lead in a hand, which you’vebeen semi-bluffing with a flush draw and your opponent has been calling. Onthe river the flush arrives and your opponent checks again. If it’s an opponentwho plays their marginal hands weakly this way and almost never has a bighand in this spot, you may make the most money by making a small value betto make him curious with a one or even two-pair hand. It’s important not tooverdo this though, because you only need one big bet to be called to equalmany of these smaller bets being paid off.Defensive bets

You can also use small bets as defensive or blocking bets. These can beused 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 betsize of his choosing), or to prevent yourself being bluffed off a winning handon the river if you check. Blocking bets are a great tool against weaker playersbut stronger players will often attack them, putting you in some very difficultspots.

Another reason for using small bets is to reopen the action in an attempt toinduce errors from your opponents. For example, you’ve called a three-betfrom an aggressive opponent who is in the big blind when you raised on thebutton with Aces. The flop is 4d-5c-8h and your opponent bets. You haveseveral 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 thisspot with a variety of losing hands, thinking your min-raise bet is weak.

Big bets

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

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Using big bets to your advantage

Big bets can be used to gain maximum value when you run into a drawinghand and think your opponent will pay over the odds to continue. Let’s say thepot is $100 and a normal value bet would be around $70. In this spot if youmake a value bet of $140 you need to get called half as often to make thesame money. Therefore if you are in a hand or against an opponent where itseems that the size of the bet is not the key factor as to whether they’re callingor folding, you should often be betting more. In fact, your value bet should beas big as you think possible without strongly affecting how often you getcalled. 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, thatmoney is coming straight off your profits.

Over-bluffing

The other use of overbets is as an act of raw naked aggression when it’s abluff you think your opponent just can’t call. This is particularly useful intournament situations when a player sets another player all-in for more than thepot, either because he has a stack a bit bigger than the pot or the bettor thinkshis opponent can’t make the call ‘for his tournament life’. Here’s an example ofone of the best in action, as Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan forces his opponent off thewinning bet by making a bet he just can’t call despite suspecting he’s ahead.

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