Bet Sizing and Hand Values and other things!
Ok, after playing with alot of you now both in the past and currently, there are some huge variances on bet sizes and hand values. Im gonna try and make this make sense but as its all from my head it is hard.
I apologise to the more knowledgeable of you guys, but this post is for everyone, so read it anyway and you may pick up stuff you forgot or just change it to suit your own style.
Now, firstly, ill write the general consensus of all poker pros that ive read or watched.
Preflop - A standard raise here is 3-4x the BB, so obviously with blinds at 50/100 a raise would be in the ballpark of 300-400. This is standard for every position. Ill list a few example in a bit. Obviously, if your shortstacked (imo this is 10BB and under) all in works exactly the same as a raise as if your raising nearly half your stack with a hand, you should NEVER fold to a reraise, this is because you will be getting 4-1 or over on yor money, and even if you have A7 vs AA, your getting the right price, and this is worst case scenario. most other times, you will be getting great odds to call.
Now, hand values change preflop depending on your position. Obviously the biggest hands are good anywhere youd think. e.g you look and find AQsuited under the gun (1st to act preflop), and you like it so you raise. However, this is often not the case. Statistically, there are 9 more hands to be seen after yours, and AQs is not %wise the best hand on the table. The problem is that the earlier you find yourself acting preflop, the more hands there are to come behind you, therefore the more chance that your beat.
This also works the opposite way. Say you have AA utg.... youd raise right? Not every time. A raise UTG signifies stregnth, and alot of players realise this and fold hands in other positions they would have either called or raised with themselves. In early stages of games and in our games this doesnt happen much, but when you get deeper into games, or playing bigger buyins, you find yourself getting called a lot less with big raises from early positions.
Now the 3-4x BB raise amount is standard. This gets bad hands out, keeps good hands in and limits the field. This is the whole point of raising. You limit the field, improve your pot winning percentage, and increase the pot for when and if you do win it.
Using Dabber as an example (sorry mate). Myself and him were at an NDNPT table with 6 sitouts last week. Blinds were 10/20. Even if i wasnt in the bliinds, with only 2 players, you would raise 130-200 every time. I understand that you want to get called, and if you raised lower amounts with your good hands, most of the average hands i folded (A6, QJs that i remember), i would have played and you would have gotten paid off better than raising so much to steal the blinds.
Again, this works backwards too. Say you raise 200 into my BB of 20, and i find KK-AA or similar hands. Im more than likely ahead, and with you having raised a good proportion of your stack, im going to win alot more in just 1 reraise or all in that you would over 10 raises of such a big amount. So if you keep all your raises around the same mark (obviously editing the amounts slightkly to vary your play) no-one will know what you have, you will be getting players in the pot with worse hands than you, increase the size of the pot you win, and still make the same amount as you do now from taking the blinds uncontested.
(i wasnt picking on you dabber there, its just the one thing that stuck with me)
Now - Flop.
The standard flop bet is between 1/2 and the amount of the pot. Obviously you can check, the new option, but lets take it that we are betting, and not cehcking no pair or a monster to trap.
Say you have AJ and the flop is A 6 2. Your against 1 other player and he checks. You could check behind, but we shall bet for the purpose of this post. The pot is 200, so you "should" bet between 100-200 here. This again builds the pot, keeps worse hands in, BUT, now, doesnt give the players who have drawing hands or worse kickered Aces, or lower pairs.
Your basically saying to them "bet $100 on this coin toss, pick heads, and if u win ill give you $50, i win u give me $100. You will win the same as they do, but youl make so more much money than they will, make sense?
Bet sizing should be summed up simply. Betting is gathering information. If the fold you know you were ahead or made a good bluff. If they call you know they have SOMETHING. If they raise, either something or nothing. Using tactics and prior hand knowledge helps with these as the more you play, the more you see, the more "instinct" for what they have you will have, also caled "reading":)
1 - I have a great hand - What can i bet that he/she will call.
2 - I have an average hand, what can i bet that will either win me the pot now, or give me enough information on what my opponent des (i.e calls/raises), so that i know where i am in this hand.
3 - I have nothing, im going to try and take it down anyway, what can i bet that achieves this.
Betting 100 into a 1,000 pot means nothing, as even with A5 and a board of 5 K J, i wont fold. Betting 500 there gets me to fold nrly every time, as does betting 1k.
Overbetting is simply put betting too much. e.g 1,000 pot, flop comes down and you bet $4,000. This bet is crazy!!!!!!
1 - Your only getting called by a better hand.
2 - you wont get paid off and improve your stack like you should.
3 - If you do get called, what the hell do you do now!!!!
These are just some basic pointers. Ill go more into post-flop play and other situations in the future, but i just want you guys to know that im tryng to ost this info so you can improve your games, and in turn i can imrpove mine as reading feedback is so important in getting better. The mroe you see and read and learn, the mroe money you make!
simple really.
And who deosnt want to make money!
