Bet-sizing, Part IIb: Making Decisions Easy

Somewhat belatedly, I give you the second of three examples on sizing bets or raises in a way to make the potential decision on whether or not to fold to a re-raise easy. The belatedness of this post has to do with planning and executing a close friend’s bachelor event (or stag , if you prefer) which took place last night. Great fun, but this post isn’t about men drinking beer and bonding in a sauna.
The main consideration when deciding on the size of a bet is the effective stack. With very deep stacks, the preflop raise decides how big the pot will (or can) eventually become. With very small stacks, you must instead focus on avoiding the trap of being committed with a hand that you don’t want to continue with. Today’s example illustrates the importance of planning the future betting already preflop:
$25NL, 6-max. It’s folded to you on the button, and you hold ace-queen. You would (or at least should) normally open with a very wide range here, so raising with AQ is a no-brainer. But before you raise, make sure to check how big the effective stack is between you and the blinds! If you have a loose big blind with a small stack, you should usually not raise to 3-4 times the big blind (the typical standard opening raise) but instead make a smaller raise. Look:
If the effective stack between you and the big blind is, say, 30BB, and you raise to four times the BB preflop and he calls, the pot will be 8BB with 27BB left behind. If he checks to you and you make any kind of continuation bet, you’re committed with your ace-high. Even if you only bet half the pot, you are more or less forced to call if he checkraises all-in, as the pot would be laying you about 2:1. In fact, even if he doesn’t checkraise all-in but to a smaller amount, you’re still committed. He’ll have so few chips left that if you’re calling that checkraise now, you can not fold at any future point in the hand anyway.
The hand plays out very differently if you instead raise to, say, 2.5BBs preflop. Yes, close to a minraise, but let’s leave dogma at the door. Suddenly, the same postflop scenario would become a 5BB pot on the flop, into which you bet 2.5BBs. If he checkraises you now, the effective odds you’re getting are 34:22, and while the difference in required chance to win “only” goes up by a paltry 10 percentage points, that’s really all it takes to make a close call into a clear fold.
It’s perhaps strange that I suggest raising to a smaller amount with a hand like A-Q preflop, given that it seems clear that that’s where you have your edge. Why not raise a lot preflop and create what is essentially a situation where HE’s the one who’s committed. That’s actually not a terrible idea; if you can somehow make him committed with your preflop raise, you’ve created a situation in which you get your chips in with an edge. If you raise to, say, 9 or 10BBs preflop and he calls, you can go ahead and push on the flop and he will almost have to call regardless of his holding. The trouble area for you, is when the pot isn’t so small that you can easily fold or so big that you can easily shove, but just in between. And that’s what you should try to avoid.
So, action point for next session: When you’re on the button, check the effective stack size between you and the blinds. If the stacks are somewhat deep, go ahead and make a regularly sized raise. Otherwise, make sure to raise less.
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