Bet Sizing

[kevster]

I have no specific examples, but could probably find a bunch of them. I'm just looking for some general stuff on bet sizing.

A search revealed this - http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ng-174694.html - and there's some great stuff here from the good doctor but this focuses on pre-flop and I'm interested more in post-flop.

Can anyone point me to a decent post / sticky because I can't find one. Maybe someone needs to write one

[mcatdog]

Post some hands, this is almost like asking how do I play poker. One piece of advice that helped me a lot for shallow stack-to-pot-ratio situations was this awesome advice by nutsinho:

any lines that will allow you to threaten an all in by the river without making a ridiculous overbet are viable.

[baudib]

i remember that line, too. i feel like all of nuts' posts should be compiled/stickied.

[kevster]

Post some hands, this is almost like asking how do I play poker. One piece of advice that helped me a lot for shallow stack-to-pot-ratio situations was this awesome advice by nutsinho:

Thanks mcat. I suspected that someone might say post hands so I'll do this next time I get a spot I'm unsure about (any post-flop then!).

I used to just stick out a half pot bet regardless of whether I was c-betting, betting for value or protecting etc. If that went wrong, I then wondered about the bet size - obviously completely the wrong way of going about it. I've played around with sizing in some different situations and also mixing it up for balance but I've still got a lot of concerns here.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'll post some hands.

[chardrian]

I also used to be one of those players who bet basically the same amount in any situation. The big thing for me has simply been to truly think ahead.

Understanding position, hand value, your opp's tendencies, and stack depth all weigh into my equation now and "standard" bet or raise amounts have gone out the window.

[fjuanl]

I've been working on this a lot (mostly in terms of stack depth). Most stacks are fairly easy to set up comfortable sizing, but I'm noticing 20bb's postflop is really lame. Most of the time you either have to choice to

a) Make a fairly big cbet (55-75% pot) to set up around a pot-sized turn shove. This gets tricky because you would get 2/1 to call a CRAI (which on certain flops might be enough to justify bet/calling Ace high, middle pair etc). Another problem is you lose a lot of your stack when you cbet/fold

b) Make a tiny 3barrel. Depending how big the pot is, your average cbet will be around 40-45% pot. The problems with this are you will get bluff raised on the flop more and don't protect made hands very well.

Do you guys have a preference to one of these? If a) is better, the best open raise size is going to be around 2.3-2.5x. If b) is better, we should minraise

When I wasn't paying attention to sizing as much, I noticed I'd often be on the turn with 20bbs and have ~1.5 pot left, which I think is a problem. If you bet less than all-in, observant villains should read this as very strong (it would be very bad/unlikely for you to bet/fold that much of your stack). Its also hard to overbet bluff shove because you need so much fold equity

edit: obviously its better to adjust due to texture of flops, but i like having a default

[revolvingiris]

Bet sizing is more about your stack divided by the number of streets you have to bet. Here is an exercise you can try to help learn about bet sizing.

10k stack and there are 4 betting streets (preflop, flop, turn, river). 10k/4= 2500 on each street to get all in and max value. Now no one would bet like this so move some of the numbers around. Say villain will only call so you bet:

1k preflop (9k left-2k pot), 2.5k flop (6.6k left- 7k pot), 6.6k turn (all in-20k pot)

I tend to visualize my bets in columns: | A | | B | | C | | D | and inside each column is single bar graph representing 25% of my stack (25%x4=100% of stack). Then I try to think of a way to make my bet sizing exponentially higher then the column previous but have it still make sense in relation to the pot (not over betting).

After doing this a while and playing around you should be able to get all in on or by the river in almost any spot if you so choose. Sorry if this is gibberish, didn't know what else to contribute lol.

[baudib]

i think you're overbetting the flop there iris?

In MTTs, when you get to the point of having 20k stacks, usually there will not be 3 rounds of betting anyway unless you are talking about 2 monster stacks.

you have to consider your goals in each hand after the flop...are we looking for FE or value, are we trying to stack off or balancing value with pot control?

[drmcboy]

assuming you have decided it is good to bet, ignoring stack sizes/reads:

bet 2/3 pot or so as a default. I like to bet in BB increments which gets you a little bit of randomization without having to think about it, plus I don't have to type.

bet less on Axx boards compared to other boards

bet less on boards 9 high or lower compared to boards with broad ways

bet less on paired boards

bet less on dry boards

[revolvingiris]

i think you're overbetting the flop there iris?

It was just an example...

[kevster]

Some great stuff ITT guys. Thx.

[baudib]

bet less on Axx boards compared to other boards

why?

[drmcboy]

you have more FE if you raised pre or are bluffing after being checked to pre.

if you actually have an ace you don't need to bet as much to protect your hand against say overs. there is also less chance your opp has a hand like middle pair compared to if you have JJ on a 872 board.