The Best Bet
At the World Series of Poker Academy, we pride ourselves on teaching our students to play mistakefree poker. To merely discuss strategies during the seminar would fail to accomplish our goal. Instead, to analyze our students’ play, we host a tournament during every Academy: The instructors sit down and play against their pupils. It is at this juncture of the weekend when I notice time and time again that one of the biggest mistakes our students make is not betting the right amount post-fl op.
Although this may seem trivial, think about the last time you played a tournament. Frequently players bet an improper amount and often make the mistake of giving their opponents the correct odds to draw out on them. Of course, at that point, you receive the banter in the chat box about calling with bottom pair.
When was the last time you were playing and witnessed a bet of $300 into a pot of $2,000? I would think that your opponent is hoping to get some action with his top pair, but as a seasoned poker player you know he’s making a huge mistake. Even with bottom pair, your opponent is being given the right price to draw with fi ve outs. If there’s a straight or fl ush possibility, the bet size is way too low to expect a fold from anybody with one of those draws. You want to bet an amount that makes it a mistake for your opponent to call.
Similarly, I see people make inappropriate bets like $3,000 into a $600 pot. By making such a drastic overbet, this player is just guaranteeing that he will not get paid off by a worse hand, but instead get a call by a hand that is beating him. I often see this mistake from players who foolishly limp in with pocket aces. After they receive three or four callers and nobody gives them the chance to reraise pre-fl op, they bet huge post-fl op thinking, “I need to get rid of my opponents now and win the pot before something bad happens.” Unfortunately, something bad has already happened. In this multi-way pot, pocket aces aren’t much of a favorite, and after their opponent reraises they’ll make the mathematically correct all-in call, yet often be behind.
Let’s take a look at an example and think about what you would bet in this situation. It is the fi rst level of a tournament and everyone has $10,000. You raise with Ks Qs to $300. One opponent makes the call from the button while both blinds fold. With a total of $675 in the pot, the fl op comes Qd 10s 3s. How much would you bet?
Top pair with a good kicker and a fl ush draw – not a bad fl op. I prefer that players bet a fi xed percentage of the pot every time they bet. Players ought to have a fi xed percentage because too many players tend to have one pattern or another based on the strength of their hand. That percentage needs to remain consistent to ensure that you don’t give anything away based on the size of your bet. Being consistent is the only way to protect yourself from tipping your hand in the long run. In this situation, I’d bet $600.
Betting the pot or close to it is the correct amount to bet. However, if the correct bet is more than a third of either your stack or your opponent’s stack, perhaps going all in is better.
Early in a tournament if I fl op a pair and a fl ush draw and know that this pot might get very big, I’ll size my initial bet or raise so that I can make the last all-in push. If my opponent has A-Q, it’s a virtual coin fl ip; and rather than fl ipping a coin for all the chips, I’d rather get him to fold by reraising. If he has a set, we aren’t going to get him to fold no matter what we do, but there are plenty of hands like A-Q or K-K where putting enough pressure on our opponents might persuade them to fold. Remember that if our opponent has a hand with which he is really willing to get all his chips in the pot, then he is the favorite in this case. But the majority of the time, our constant pressure will do the trick.
Using the example above, let’s try to incorporate the method I mentioned. There is $675 in the pot, and normally you might bet between $550 and $650, which is a good bet size right now. If your opponent reraises to $1,500, instead of your normal re-reraise to $4,500, you’d push all your chips to the center of the pot (as $4,500 is almost half your chips anyway). That doesn’t tell him what kind of hand you have, but if I’m your opponent and have A-Q, I’m not going to be happy. At this time, I’d rationalize that my opponent should have one pair beat or is holding a big draw. If I’m either a small favorite or way behind, why would I want to call all my chips?
Adjusting the pot size in the example, imagine if there were $2,000 in the pot pre- fl op. Remember that we’re trying to be the ones who make the last bet, so our typical $1,800 bet wouldn’t work in this case. If we made that bet, our opponents would probably reraise all in and we’d be stuck calling since we have too much equity to correctly fold. Given that this is the case, you might want to make a smaller bet to keep with our goal of making the fi nal push. An unusually small bet like $500 or $1,000 would be ideal since when they reraise $2000 to $3,000, you can push in.
In this scenario, you’re giving your opponent a chance to fold a hand like A-Q again. Even holding pocket aces, your opponent might contemplate a fold since the betting has told the story that you might have fl opped a set. Your opponent will realize that you will have a strong made hand or a strong draw. He might call, but he isn’t correct to do so.
If you’re a solid player, your opponent is in a tough spot and this is the way good solid players will mix it up. They’ll force the action and jam the pot with strong draws in addition to strong made hands. Even if they get called by a strong hand, they’re still in good shape, with lots of outs, to win the pot.
