S05E16 - Bet Big Or Go Home - Poker Strategy

In today’s poker strategy session we talk about bet sizing and why you aren’t making as much money in poker as you could be.

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In a $1/$2 game, Hero raises to $10 on the button holding K♠️K♦️, and a less experienced player in the big blind calls with Q♦️J❤️. The flop creates a $20 pot, with a board of J♠️9♣️2❤️2♦️5❤️.

Let’s look at four different betting scenarios to determine our optimal strategy for making the most money in the hand:

1.In Scenario #1, Hero bets 33% of the pot on the flop, checks the turn, and bets 66% of the pot on the river. This yields a final pot of $53.80.
2.Scenario #2 involves a 33% pot bet on the flop, followed by 66% bets on both the turn and river. This results in a final pot size of $125.20.
3.In Scenario #3, Hero bets 50% on the flop, 66% on the turn, and 66% on the river, leading to a final pot of $169.
4.Scenario #4 Hero decides to go big and bet 80% pot bets on the flop, turn, and river, resulting in a final pot size of $246.

Comparing the outcomes:

•Scenario #1: +$55
•Scenario #2: +$125
•Scenario #3: +$170
•Scenario #4: +$246

If the villain calling range is nearly inelastic, the probabilities of these scenarios are roughly equal. You will find that the really bad low stakes players don’t think about how big the bet is within reason. They either like their hand and are calling or they aren’t. It’s binary.

Now let’s look at how this affects our bottom line if they don’t always call all bets.

If you compare the first lowest betting strategy with the last highest betting strategy, the latter makes us 4.5 times as much money. So even if our villains only call us down 1/4th of the time we make the same amount as betting small and getting called down 100% of the time. And if they even call us down 1/3 of the time now we are making more money than the smallest bet sizing getting called 100% of the time.

This is most players biggest fear. We don’t want them to fold. But as you can see , even when getting more folds we are still making more money long term.