My Articles - My Blog - Video - Poker Work - Charity - Downloads - Links - Subscribe
Sizing Up
In the first poker game ever played, nobody had ever heard of the terms limit or pot-limit (or, god forbid, half pot-limit). There was no restriction on how much you could bet, ever - any other way of playing would be unnatural and dull. In that very first poker game, the players were making the same elementary bet-sizing mistakes that are made today. In this article, I want to examine some common errors made by intermediate players in big-bet poker.
The ‘Standard Raise’
It is a popular belief that a player who raises preflop should make what has become known as the ‘standard raise’, to three times the big blind (for example, £30 in a £5/£10 game). In fact, a very common mistake is to open for three times the big blind regardless of the situation.
One of the main problems with the standard raise is that it isn’t big enough in many situations. For example, if you open for three times the big blind in early position, you offer the player to your left 1.5 to 1 on their money. If they decide to call, the next player gets 2.5 to 1 – enough to call with some quite weak hands. If they call, the next player gets 3.5 to 1 – good enough to call with almost any two cards. What you often find is that when you open from early position for a standard raise and get a call from another early player, that triggers the calling reflex in the rest of the table. All of a sudden, you’re in a five-way pot in poor position with almost no information about your opponents’ hands – an easy situation in which to go broke.
Consequently, your opening raise should probably be larger if you are in early position, assuming you have a hand that plays best against a small field (like K-K or A-K). By making a larger raise, you are more likely to thin the field. You’re also building a bigger pot with what is probably the best hand, and gaining information about your opponents’ possible holdings. All of these factors combined make your post-flop decisions easier, and earn you money in the long run.
Another problem with the standard raise is that raising the same amount each time doesn’t take advantage of your ability to vary your bet size. The great thing about being able to choose how much to bet on every street is that you can use your bet to manipulate the size of the pot to your advantage. There are many reasons to vary your opening raise.
For example, if your flop bets get a lot of respect, you should usually raise more. This is because you are likely to win the pot on the flop regardless, so you should make it big and take advantage of your opponents’ tendencies to fold too often.
You might also raise more if you need to thin the field, and you’ve noticed that a standard raise doesn’t accomplish this. I’ve played in many games where people will call a standard raise with almost anything, but fold to bigger raises. If you have a hand like A-K or A-Q at this kind of table, you should almost definitely make a bigger raise and hope that you end up playing a heads-up pot.
Two other situations where a standard raise is not appropriate are when the pot is already big and when the stacks are an unusual size.
If the pot is already large, such as when an ante is in play, people have already limped in, or when somebody has posted a dead blind or straddle, a standard raise will offer your opponents excellent pot odds to play. Again, you won’t thin the field and you might end up playing a large multiway pot with no information about your opponents’ holdings.
If the stacks are very short, your standard raise might commit you to the pot, in which case you are better off moving all of your chips in, maximising the chance that you’ll win the pot uncontested. If you have £50, making a standard raise to £30 is pointless. You’re not going to fold for the extra £20 – so just make it £50 and get out some of those marginal hands that might end up beating you.
If the stacks are very deep, you might also find that a standard raise doesn’t make the pot big enough to enable you to maximise your winnings on later streets. For example, if you and your opponent both have £5000 in a £5/£10 game, and you open for a standard raise, there is £75 in the pot after the blinds fold and your flop bet will usually be in the £50 to £100 range. Barring unlikely set-over-set situations, you’re probably not going to get your opponent’s entire stack on this hand – in fact, you’ll be lucky to get £1000 of it. However, if you make it £100 before the flop, there’s now £215 in the pot, and your typical flop bet will be £150 to £300. You now have a very real shot at your opponent’s entire stack, and by risking just £70 more preflop, you’ve given yourself a chance to win thousands more on later streets.
While this is an extreme example, the general point should be clear – don’t be afraid to build a big pot when it suits you.
The Continuation Bet
Since the release of Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie’s highly regarded book Harrington on Hold’em, the continuation bet has been very popular with intermediate players. However, it is often misused.
For those who don’t know, the continuation bet is a bet made when you are the preflop raiser, designed to take the pot down when both you and your opponent have missed. It’s a powerful move when used appropriately, and one of the most common and effective bluffs. If you raise preflop with A-K and the flop comes Q-J-5, many typical opponents will fold a hand like pocket tens without a second thought to a bet. The continuation bet allows you to win a lot of pots that you aren’t entitled to, simply because you have shown strength.
However, many players have misunderstood the theory behind the continuation bet, and believe that it should always be half the size of the pot. This simply isn’t the case. First of all, when Harrington and Robertie suggested the half-pot-sized continuation bet, they did so as a guideline. They also assumed that such a bet was significant relative to the players’ stacks.
In cash games and tournaments with deep stacks, a half-pot-sized continuation bet often isn’t big enough to get the job done. When the bet doesn’t threaten to take a serious chunk out of their stacks, your opponents will often call you with marginal hands such as flush draws or middle pair, hoping to get lucky and bust you. They might even call hoping to bluff you later in the hand – an absolute disaster for you. If you’re a good enough player to know exactly what your opponents have when they call your bet – fine, play ‘small ball’ poker and make the small bet. However, most of us will have to increase the size of our continuation bets in deep-stack situations, and not automatically bet half the pot.
The Value Bet
Another fundamental mistake I see made often occurs when a player is value betting on the river. For example, let’s assume that we’ve made the nuts on the river, there is £500 in the pot, and our opponent has £1000 left. We have plenty of money. How much should we bet?
Many players make a mistake here by usually betting a small amount, such as £150. Such a bet is so small relative to the pot that it will be paid off by almost any decent hand. But by making such a small bet, they aren’t maximising their profit in the long run.
To show this, let’s compare two possible bet sizes, £150 and £500. Of course, the bigger your bet, the less likely it is to be called, as a typical opponent will need a stronger hand to call a big bet than they will a small bet (although certain players will actually be more suspicious of a big bet and more likely to call). To illustrate a point, I’m going to use extreme figures, and assume that our £150 bet will be called 90% of the time, and our £500 bet only 40% of the time.
The expected value of these bets is simply the probability that we will be called multiplied by the amount of the bet, or 0.9 x £150 = £135 for the first bet, and 0.4 x £500 = £200 for the second. That is, on average, we’ll win £135 from our opponent when we make the small bet, but £200 when we make the big bet.
As you can see, even though the big bet will be called much less often, it still earns a significantly larger long-run profit. In fact, you can repeat these calculations with any reasonable figures, and you’ll find that the big bet is usually the better option, because the chance of an opponent calling does not decrease in proportion with the size of the bet.
Of course, the whole situation becomes more complicated when you don’t have the nuts on the river. Then, you also have to factor in the probability that your hand will be best when you are called. The key to value betting is to find the sweet spot between betting so much that only a better hand will call, and betting so little that you don’t make the maximum profit from the hand. Quite often, you’ll find that the best bet is bigger than you might think.
Varying Your Bet Size
One of the often-cited reasons not to vary the size of your bets is that observant players will quickly catch on to what you are doing, and be able to read your hands more accurately. However, the typical player should not take this advice too seriously.
If you play small to medium-stakes games on the internet or in local casinos, your typical opponent will not be concentrating completely on the game, nor will they be extraordinarily skilled. At the bigger internet sites, the player pool will be so large that you might not face the same player twice for a very long time. In games like this, you can vary your bets as much as you like. Your opponents won’t be sophisticated enough to understand what your bets mean, and they won’t be paying enough attention to pick up any patterns. Even if a particularly observant player does catch on to what you’re doing, you might not play with them again for a long time.
If however you are playing in games where the players are observant enough to pick up on what you’re doing, don’t stop varying your bet sizes to your advantage. Either find a better game, or introduce a random element into your play – randomly making your bets larger or smaller, but averaging a size that best suits you.
How Much To Bet? – A real life example hand - Mizrachi VS Chamanara
Playing eight-handed $300/$600 No Limit Hold’em with a $100 ante, Fred Chamanara limps in early position, Daniel Negreanu calls in the small blind, and Michael Mizrachi raises to $2800 from the big blind, holding the 7♠ 7♥.
Notice that Mizrachi does not make the standard raise. He is out of position and the pot is already big due to the two limpers, which suggests a larger raise is appropriate. He also holds the kind of hand that has a good chance to win against only one opponent unimproved.
Chamanara and Negreanu both call. Everyone has over $100,000 in chips.
There is $9200 in the pot, and the flop is J♥ 10♣ 7♣.
With two players who have limped in and a board of this texture, it is likely that at least one of Mizrachi’s opponents likes the flop. Mizrachi should make a continuation bet, just as he would with nothing, and hope to get action from a weak hand. Checking would be a mistake, as it would allow Negreanu and Chamanara to draw for free if they wanted to.
Mizrachi actually bets $5000. Chamanara calls and Negreanu folds.
Notice that Mizrachi’s continuation bet is bigger than half the pot and he has not fallen into the trap of automatically making an exactly half-pot-sized bet. However, his bet needn’t be too big, as he doesn’t want his opponents to fold, and he is an excellent player – better able to read his opponents than you or me.
The turn is the 8♠. Mizrachi bets $6600, and Chamanara calls. There’s $32,800 in the pot, and the river is the J♣.
Mizrachi has a strong hand, but not the nuts, and it is likely given the action that Chamanara has a strong hand also. If Chamanara has a flush or a straight, he will almost certainly call. Therefore the best way for Mizrachi to maximise his profit is to make a big bet, but not so big that it will only be called by a better full house. With plenty of money left, the appropriate bet size is probably close to the size of the pot.
Mizrachi actually bets $25,000. Chamanara calls with the A♥ J♦ and loses a pot worth $82,800.
Mizrachi played the hand close to perfectly. He made the pot big before the flop, enabling him to maximise his value later in the hand. His continuation bet was the perfect size to encourage his opponents to make a mistake. Lastly, his bet on the river was appropriately big, considering Chamanara’s possible range of hands. If Mizrachi had made a standard raise preflop, bet half the pot on the flop, and made a small value bet on the river, he would have won thousands of dollars less.
