Bet Sizing: Preflop Raises

One interesting area that we haven't look at yet this week is preflop raise sizing. At most low stakes (say, $1/$2) no-limit games, the preflop raises are unusually large -- often $12 or more. Even if the players making these very large raisers are good, this oversized preflop raise should be exploitable simply by tightening up and punishing them when you have a monster. Since you're playing mainly with poor-to-mediocre players at these levels, it's simply handing you more money in the long run, as you're likely to outplay your opponents after the flop (not to mention the fact that most of your opponents are likely raising with a range that includes some relatively weak hands).

The ideal preflop raise is probably more like $6 or $7, even after accounting for the rake or drop taken preflop. Some players would suggest going as low as $5; I recommend going about as low as you can without making your raises significantly smaller than the "standard" raise made at the table, since this will be less likely to draw attention. For instance, if most preflop raises are in the $10-$12 range, try raising to $8 -- that should be enough to get the same results, will allow you to keep the stacks fairly large in comparison to the pot, and shouldn't be enough of a deviation from the norm to make other players wonder what you're up to.

Bet Sizing: When You're Not Sure

Despite all of the tips I've written about this week, you're still likely to come upon numerous situation where you're just not sure what the correct bet size is. Chances are that you'll narrow it down to a certain range, but you may not be sure what in that range to bet. For instance, you may feel that a bet in the range of $40-$50 is correct in a given situation...but how do you decide what in that range to bet?

The best rule of thumb is to bet on the higher end of that range. This will rarely be a major mistake, while betting too little can get you into trouble. If you're betting too much, you might occasionally turn a call you wanted from an opponent into a fold (or, in the better case, the extra few dollars will be just enough to make your bluff work). That can be annoying, but you still win the pot. When you bet too little, you might give another player the correct odds to call on a draw, or get a call from a hand that beats you, but which you might have knocked out of the pot with a larger bet.

The bottom line? Next time you're not sure what to bet, go a little bigger -- you'll rarely regret it. While a bet that's too big might cost you a few dollars, a bet that's too small can cost you the entire pot.

Bet Sizing: Polarizing Bets

You may have heard of the idea of a polarizing bet: one that can only represent a huge hand or a bluff. But what kind of bet represents a polarizing bet, and why would you want to make one?

The answer relates to one of my previous tips: sizing your bets based on the perceived strength of your opponents' hand. In that tip, we talked about how, when value betting a very strong hand on the river, you should make larger bets if you believe your opponent has a strong hand and is unlikely to fold. This creates a situation in which the meaning of your bets is somewhat limited:

Small/Normal Bet: You believe your opponent has a marginal hand and want to induce a call; you might do this with anything from a hand just barely worth value betting to the nuts. It is also possible to make a small bet bluff in certain situations, though that's a tricky play.

Large Bet: You may make this bet with a very strong hand when you believe your opponent has a strong hand themselves. You might also make a large bet to induce an opponent to fold when you're bluffing.

Large bets can only be made with a strong hand (if your opponent might have a strong enough hand to call) or as an attempted bluff. That makes a large river bet a polarizing bet. Even if you did make a large bet with a marginally valuable hand, it's essentially a bluff (and almost always a big mistake, since you could have just checked to take a showdown), since your opponent will only call a large bet with a hand that beats you.

Bet Sizing: Board Composition

In my last tip, I mentioned that while we don't want to give away the strength of our hand with our bet size, we can make bets based on the perceived strength of our opponents' hands. Similarly, it's a good idea to adjust the size of your bets based on the composition of the board.

The basic rule is to bet more on wet boards than on dry boards. There are two good reasons for adjusting your bets in this manner:

• On dry boards, your opponents are less likely to have a draw that is dangerous to your hand. You are better off trying to induce calls from weak hands than worrying about protecting your hand. 
• On wet boards, there are numerous draws that are possible. This both encourages you to protect your hand against draws, and makes your opponents more likely to call larger bets even when they shouldn't.

Again, these adjustments should have nothing to do with the strength of your hand! Of course, you'll use the strength of your hand to determine if you want to bet in the first place. But you've decided to make a bet, you'll use other factors to determine the size of that bet.

Bet Sizing in No-Limit: River Bets

Yesterday, we talked about how your river bets should -- on average -- be for a smaller percentage of the pot size than your bets on earlier streets. But that doesn't mean that all of your river bets should be for the same size.

Of course, we don't really want to adjust the size of our river bets based on the strength of our hand -- but we can make adjustments based on how strong we think our opponents' hand is! If we have hand we want to make a value bet with, and we think our opponent has something strong enough to call us, but not something they'll be happy about calling with, make a small bet; that's probably all they'll be willing to call. Meanwhile, if we think there's a good chance that our opponent has a strong hand (but one we can beat), betting more than we normally would makes sense, as our opponent is likely to call regardless of our bet size, within reason.

In the long run, despite the fact that you aren't considering the strength of your hand when sizing bets, you'll get more money out of your monsters by sizing your bets according to the perceived strength of your opponents. You'll be extracting the maximum from opponents who hold strong hands, while frequently getting smaller bets from opponents who have marginal holdings.

Bet Sizing in No-Limit: Different Sizes for Different Streets

For the next few days, I'll be writing about ways to adjust the size of your bets in No-Limit games! For starters, here's a quick tip that can help you better size your bets after the flop in No-Limit Hold'em. As the hand goes on, your value bets (and as a consequence, your bluffs) should generally be getting larger in an absolute sense, but smaller in comparison to the size of the pot.

As an example, let's imagine you flop top pair, top kicker on a dry board. You're fairly certain your loose-passive opponent has a hand they believe is strong enough to call down with, but which you can beat (like top pair with a worse kicker). If the pot going into the flop is $20 (and assuming you're both deep-stacked), you might structure you bets as follows:

Flop: $15 into the $20 pot (new pot is $50)
Turn: $30 into the $50 pot (new pot is $110)
River: $50 into the $110 pot (final pot is $210)

Why do we structure our bets this way? Remember that on the flop, our opponents may have relatively high implied odds should they hit their hand; this both encourages them to call more significant bets, while encouraging us to make them pay more to draw out. On the turn, with just one card to come (and only one betting round to go), the player who is behind has significantly lower implied odds. Finally, on the river, implied odds aren't even a factor -- there are no more cards to come or rounds of betting to worry about.

Of course, there are other factors at work too, which we'll talk about in the next few days. But as a general rule, you don't need to bet as much on average (in comparison to the pot size) on the river as you should on the turn or the flop.

Junk Hands

Junk hands are the hands you should normally never play, barring getting a free look from the big blind. Of course, even among junk hands, some holdings are better than others, and I like to classify junk hands into a few different categories:

Pure Junk: These are the hands you will basically never, ever want to play, as they have almost no redeeming value. Sure, you might get to check with them in the big blind and flop a full house, but other than that, these hands have absolutely nothing going for them. Examples include 8♦3♣, J♣2♠, or 5♥2♦. Seriously, you don't need to play these hands, even if you're Gus Hansen. On the other hand, since they have virtually no value, they can sometimes make excellent bluffing hands; if your opponent raises you, you won't feel bad about having to fold.

Deceptive Junk: These are the kinds of hands played by casual players who are far too loose. These hands look like they're offering you some value, but in reality, they'll make a whole lot of second-best hands -- and not a lot of winners. Examples include T♣5♣, Q♠7♦, and low unsuited connectors like 5♦4♣. These hands also shouldn't be played under normal circumstances, but the suited cards and connectors are the kinds of hands a good player can play from the small blind or limp on the button with in a game against especially loose and bad opponents.

Junk That Isn't Always Junk: Hands like A♦6♣ and K♠9♥ aren't good in most situations; like the hands in the Deceptive Junk category, they tend to make second best hands when you flop a pair and lose to a better kicker. However, these hands are actually good hands when you're short stacked and want to get all-in before the flop. This is because they run well "hot-and-cold" -- that is to say, when you're guaranteed to see a showdown and don't have to worry about facing additional bets. The shorter stacked you are, the more hands fit into this category.

Why make such distinctions? As I mentioned earlier, there are some cases where you'll want to play some of these junky-looking hands, so it's important to know which hands are really bad, and which ones you normally don't want to play but will occasionally find a use for. Next time you get a terrible hand, take a second look and think about the situation you're in before throwing them away!

Some self promotion before I go: if you enjoy getting these tips, and would like to learn more about playing poker, check out my book Catching Fish: A Practical Guide to Beating $1/$2 No-Limit Texas Hold'em Games, available now in the Kindle Store!