| Situations
will arise in No Limit Texas Hold'em when a smaller bet will actually
give you more bang for your buck. More specifically, there are times
when betting half the pot will give you the same amount of information
as betting the whole pot.
This is a relatively simple concept,
especially among top-tier players, but it's a strategy that many novice
and average players haven't fully grasped.
Let's look at an
example to help clarify this point. Suppose you are playing No Limit
Hold'em and raised before the Flop with A-10. Only the player in the
big blind called you, so you continue to play heads-up with 700 in the
pot.
The flop comes Kc-8s-4d. The big blind checks to you. You
decide to bet in the hope that your opponent missed the Flop and will
fold. The question is, how much should you bet?
Well, if you bet
the whole pot, 700, you'll definitely find out if your opponent is
serious about continuing with the hand. If he calls the pot-sized bet,
chances are he has a better hand than your ace high.
While we
know we can get that information with a 700 bet, the pertinent
questions are: Do you really need to risk the whole 700 to gather that
information? Would the outcome be any different had you bet, say, 450?
Probably
not. A pot-sized bet and a bet of approximately one-half the pot will
yield about the same information. However, the smaller bet is often a
much better choice for several reasons:
Reasons to go small
•
1. When you are bluffing, you'll be risking fewer chips when you get
caught. Remember, if you are attempting to flat-out steal the pot,
betting one-half, three-quarters, or even the full pot will all
generally give you sufficient information as to whether your opponent
hit the flop.
So in this situation, why risk betting the whole pot when a smaller bet would accomplish the same objective?
•
2. When you actually have a good hand and want your opponents to play
with weaker hands, they'll be more likely to call a bet of one-half the
pot rather than a full pot-sized bet. If you have a monster hand and
are looking for action, betting half the pot will get you a few more
loose calls, and that's exactly what you want.
• 3. The math is on
your side. Virtually every poker situation can be broken down into a
simple mathematical formula. If there is 600 in a pot and you bet 600,
you'll be getting even money on your proposition. That means, in the
long run, you'd have to win that pot half of the time to make it a
profitable play. (Other factors come into play on the next two cards,
but let's ignore that for this example.)
When you consider that
the hand will play out almost identically with a 400 bet, you'll see
that, mathematically, it often makes sense to choose the smaller bet.
Get more for money
If
you bet 400, you'd be risking 400 to win 600, meaning that you'd be
getting 3-2 odds rather than even-money. The smaller bet will achieve
virtually the same result as the bigger bet but would only have to pay
off 40 percent of the time rather than 50 percent of the time had you
bet the whole pot.
You will rarely see a top professional bet
all of what's in the pot when you watch poker on television. They'll
vary their bets generally between one-third, one-half, and
three-quarters of the pot. They understand that by keeping the pots
smaller, they'll have more control over the outcome. And that's just
what they want — to maintain control of the table.
Amateurs, on
the other hand, will often make over-sized bets out of fear. They worry
that a superior player will be able to outplay them if they don't make
a sizable bet. Frankly, that thinking isn't too far off-base.
Playing
small-bet poker is for professionals and for those who aspire to
improve their games to a professional level. If that's not where you
are, it just might make sense for you to swing for the fences.
By Daniel Negreanu |
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