Bet-sizing, Part III: Bluffing

The lesson about sizing bluffs learned from No-limit Hold’em - Theory and Practise is that we should bet enough to “get the job done” but not much more. In theory, I could end this post on sizing bluffs on that note, because there really isn’t that much more to say. If you decide to bluff, make a bet that’s big enough, but not too big. For instance, if I want to bet into an opponent who will fold everything but the nuts to a bet that’s at least half the pot, then clearly betting more than just a little over half the pot is just wasting money. Every dollar that goes in over that ideal amount is a loss, of varying degrees.
Really, there’s not much more to say about how to size your bets when bluffing - except this:
Don’t go and get yourself committed.
I use “except this” kind of slyly here, because this is really a very big deal. A very easy-to-grasp example of this idea - that I’ve touched on earlier in this series of posts when dealing with “easy decisions” - is when you’re on the button and it’s folded to you. You should normally open with a very wide range, but now let’s say the big blind has a very short stack left - let’s say 10BB. If you raise to 4BB with 7-5 offsuit, and he pushes all-in, you might end up having to call because of the pot odds. See?
A slightly more complex, but really a version of the same theme, example comes fresh off the presses from this morning, when I played a little $50NL before work. In this particular example, I’m dealing with a semi-bluff:
100BB effective stacks, 6-max.
I raised to $2 under-the-gun. Only the big blind called, and he called with A-3 of hearts.
Flop comes Q-T-3, two spades, one heart. He checks, I bet $4, and he calls with bottom pair, top kicker. The pot is now $12.
The turn is the king of hearts, giving him bottom pair, top kicker and the nut flush draw. Again, he checks and I bet $8. Here, he decides to fire a semibluff, which is actually a fairly decent time to try it. I often bet two barrels and will fold a lot of my range here, and if he can get me off any hand at all, it’s a great victory for him. But here is where he went wrong: He raised to $25, leaving him committed to calling when I pushed all-in, because by then, the pot was $81 and it was only $19 more for him to call with a pair and a flushdraw. A better move on his part would have been to checkraise to a smaller amount - maybe even close to a min-raise - in order to give himself the option of folding. Instead, he was forced to put in $36 on the turn with what realistically was only about a 20% chance to win.
And at this point, I want to kill a potential misunderstanding before it spreads: Giving yourself future odds to call a bet is not a good thing. I believe this faulty logic is common enough to warrant a reminder in this post, despite me having talked about it before. Him raising to an amount where he’s forced to call a push isn’t, as some people have put it, “two +EV decisions in a row, and as long as I make +EV decisions, I’m OK!”
And that’s really at the heart of it. Bluffing an amount that will make you committed is to be avoided.
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