I ended the first post with the teaser of this post being about “sizing your bets and raises in a way that makes folding to a re-raise much easier.” This is only half the truth, really. I should have said, “sizing your bets and raises in a way that makes the decision of whether or not to fold to a re-raise much easier.”
No-limit, by and large, is centered around the big bluff. “Moving In.” “Pushing.” “Shoving.” “Going all-in.” It’s centered around it in the sense that the threat of the all-in bluff looms as a possibility at all times when you play no-limit. That threat, for instance, is what causes people to check behind on the river with decent hands because they fear their opponent might check/raise all-in, leaving them with a horribly difficult decision. So instead, they save (or lose?) a few bucks and just check.
It’s always there. And it’s how to take the edge of it by being smarter about bet sizing that’s the topic. And I want to do this with a couple of examples, starting today with one - potentially on my part grossly misplayed - hand, where I size my bet on the turn in such a way as to stop my opponent from bluffing me off. The example is very verbose, because I think it contains a few other interesting situations besides the actual problem of bet sizing; hopefully you will find it interesting as well. I played this hand a week or two ago:
6-max $50NL on PokerStars. I have 66 in the cut-off seat. It’s folded to me and I open to $2. This raise is half steal, half value raise. Most hands that would call that raise have me at either a coin toss or severely dominated, but I have some great fold equity to capitalize on post flop, as well as huge implied odds versus some hands when I flop a set.
Unfortunately, the button calls my raise, but at least both blinds folds. I say unfortunately, because now I’m out of position with a very marginal hand. What I know about the button so far is that he’s very loose, very aggressive and likes to bluff. He’s not “bad” necessarily, just very tricky, but he does seem to have some method to his madness. Also, his stack is a bit short.
The flop comes A-K-K. The effective stack at this time is $25, and the pot is $4.50.
Now, I could have given up on this flop, but I wasn’t too happy about that outcome. My equity wasn’t great, admittedly, but I should have had some decent fold-equity lined up here. Specifically, I thought I could get him to fold pocket pairs and overcards to my sixes, which (take my word for it, or play around with Stove yourself to find out) constitute 30% of his holdings. I think he will continue with all aces, all kings and all QJ/QT/JT combos.
You can perhaps see why giving up wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after all; continuing out of position is a recipe for disaster. However, I didn’t have time to Stove these things at the table, so I went with my (incorrect) gut feeling that I had a good case for betting here, and did. I bet $3 into the $4.50 pot. He calls. He didn’t snap call, and he didn’t tank either. He just called with the normal flow of the game, for what’s worth to the timing-tells people out there.
But what does it mean? It means he’s either slowplaying or floating. It means that I can’t win this hand without getting him to fold, because if we go to showdown, I’ve lost (as he’s not going to call down with QJ). This ties in with the topic how?
… because on the turn, the pot is $10.50, and remaining in his stack (the smaller one) is $20. If I check, I expect him to bet almost every time. And I can’t call if he does, because his equity is better than mine, after all. So I have to bet myself, but how much do I bet? “As little as possible” is really the key phrase, here. For all intents and purposes, my bet is a bluff - I want him to fold! I should bet the smallest amount that gets the job done. But, and this is important, there are two factors to take into account for the minimum size of the bet as well, and they are:
1. When he’s drawing, I should prevent him from drawing profitably (he will have 10 outs when that happens).
2. Don’t bet so little that he will be enticed to move all-in as a bluff.
… and it’s really #2 that’s the key problem here, and what this topic is all about. I want to bet enough on the turn that he will realize that there’s no point in bluffing, while simultaneously not so much that folding makes no sense if he re-raises. Let’s look at some different bet sizes:
$3: He will be getting about 4:1 on calling here, or about break-even for his 10-out draw, but it’s not calling that I’m worried about. He will also have another $17 left behind, for a pot-sized all-in raise, laying me about 1.7:1 - not good for me.
$6: Offering him a little less than 3:1 is better for when he draws. He still has a little power left in moving in because in doing so he’d lay me odds of about 2:1.
$10: Betting the pot. He’d only have $15 behind, and if he raises me, it will be another $15 in a $30 pot. This will discourage most thinking opponents from trying to bluff with air. He’d be laying me about 3:1.
Differently put, because it’d be so easy for me to call a re-raise, I don’t have to call the re-raise. If he pushes now, he expects me to call. Therefore I don’t have to. As you can see, I’m thinking on the second level here (what does my opponent think I have/will do) and that of course requires an opponent who thinks on the first level. But still.
If it’s not clear enough, let me just restate that I probably botched the 66-hand. Continuing past the flop (I think bet/folding the flop is fine) is probably a mistake. Letting him have it on the turn is probably better than bluffing. But what matters isn’t whether I played it perfectly or not on the turn, it’s the thought process: Trying to size my bet in a way as to stop him from bluffing. And I think my thinking around that was fine, in my defense.
More examples on simplifying your upcoming decision will be coming throughout this week - but I need to keep the posts to some kind of sane length to not risk losing everyone halfway through.
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