Hi everybody! Today, I'm going to talk about bet sizing, common mistakes when betting, and touch on overbets. Also, a little information to fill in the gaps.
So to begin, any bet that you make should be relative to the pot size. Because of this, you should stay aware of the current pot throughout the hand.
- A common bet size is between 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot.
So say for example, you are on the flop. You have top pair and your opponent has a straight draw or bottom pair. You do not want them to see the turn for a good price. You want them to pay for the next card heavily or fold. This way we will be getting a good amount of value when they call with worse hands, and taking down pots uncontested when they fold.
There are some exceptions to this betting size.
It generally isn't a good idea to bet 1/2 pot or smaller because our opponents will be getting better odds to call, and also it doesn't generate enough value throughout the hand. Although, if our opponent is playing conservatively and you know they will not make a call very big then a smaller bet may be needed.
Half pot and two thirds pot may not sound like a big difference, but by the end of the hand it will be exponentially larger because of how the pot grows. As a general guideline you should avoid minimum bets/raises.
Preflop Sizing
- I never open limp. Meaning, if the action folds to me I never enter a hand by calling. I'm either folding or raising. Simple :D
- If someone does limp and there have been no raises, it's OK to limp behind them with a weaker range of hands than you would normally play.
- If there have been limpers and you have a strong hand you want to isolate the weaker hands by raising to protect your equity. I use this system to raise limpers. 3X the big blind + 1 big blind for every limper. If I'm on the button, I'll use 3.5X instead of 3X because of my great position.
For example: if I have AK, the big blind is $2, and 3 players call in front of me, I'm naturally going to raise it to $12.
Overbets
Ahhh, the overbet. Hahaha. This is when you bet more than the pot size. This is a confusing bet size to most beginners, I know it was for me. It is usually either a big value bet or a bluff. Tread lightly when overbetting, I wouldn't suggest this until you know how to balance your range. If you overbet only when you bluff, your opponents will notice and exploit this weakness. Same with value betting. If you're facing an overbet, it's hard to tell what they hold unless you've played them before, that's why this size works so well. The river is the most common stage of a hand when overbets are used. There will be a post later on dedicated to overbets. I just wanted to touch on the subject.
Thanks again everybody! I want to give some shout outs before I end this post. I learned most of my basic poker strategy from Greg Walker. He has his own website dedicated to strategy. http://www.thepokerbank.com/. For the more advanced stuff Doug Polk and Ryan Fee are amazing! They collaborated to create Upswing Poker. https://www.upswingpoker.com/. Doug has his own twitch channel and youtube channel. I highly recommend his strategy, as he his extremely knowledgeable and super funny. It's been good guys. ☮