Let jump into this one head first. The bet pot button is a weak player’s crutch, plain and simple. I may possibly be way off base here, but I don’t believe I am and I’ll explain why. There are so many people playing poker now, that if you are at a table of unknowns, there is no way to tell the difference between hugh_jackazz and haywood_jablowme sitting on either side of you. <READMORE>

When it comes down to it, you don’t have that many things to go off of when you’re playing against these players online. You can’t see how their dressed, how they handle themselves, how and when they talk, or what they’re doing physically when they are in a pot. One of the few pieces of information you have to go off of when playing online is the size of the player’s bet; and the bet pot button takes that away because for a good handful of players, that button is automatic. For some out there, when there is no action in front of them, they will do one of the following 3 things: check, bet min, or bet pot…absolutely nothing else.

I’m sure that this was probably a good idea when a couple of programmers were sitting around trying to figure out what they should include in their program, but I believe that this idea has weakened their programs. Don’t get me wrong, online poker is great and will continually improve, I just feel that the sites that use this feature would be better if the bet pot option were removed.

I hope some of the Ultimate Bet people read this too because I have sent them emails in the past suggesting this with the same basic “thank you for your suggestion” response. I know changes like this in a program do not happen overnight, but it sure would be a great improvement to their program.

Let me close this article by saying that I use the bet pot button out of convenience myself sometimes because its there. I never said that I don’t use it or that it’s going to be the demise of online poker, just that I would love it if that button hypothetically got in a truck and drove off a bridge. Next time you play in a multi-table tournament pay attention to this and see how often you notice people that have no other moves besides bet min and bet pot; I bet you’ll be surprised…and annoyed.

Quick Update:

I have had a couple of people chat with me about this blog since I posted and wanted to clear a few things up. “A weak players crutch” is definitely a bit harsh and shouldn’t be taken verbatim. I know that some of the best players in the online game use the bet pot button and they are obviously not weak players. PLEASE DON’T THINK THAT IM SAYING THAT IF YOU HIT THE BET POT BUTTON ONE TIME THAT IT MAKES YOU A WEAK PLAYER.

One of the persons that talked to me about this, who is btw a solid player ranked on pocketfives.com’s, commented that he specifically uses the bet pot button to disguise his hands…which was also my exact point. We both shared the exact same thoughts we just have differing opinions on whether it is good or bad.

My point was that there are so many prize pool builders (PPB’s) out there that don’t even know what a good bet in particular situation is. Everyone has seen the following situation come up: 20/40 blinds, Player A raises to 160, Player B re-raises to 500, Player A calls. The flop comes 972 and Player A leads out betting 40 chips into a 1000+ pot. Now I know when I see something like that happen I usually get a decent little smirk out of the situation while thinking how big of a idiot Player A is. Having a bet minimum button is obviously necessary for forcing the action when the blinds get higher. However, when you take the previous situation and you give a bad player the option to bet pot, a lot of them are going to do it because even when they miss the board, they cant slow down. My whole point of this article is that I hate the fact that this option is available to these PPB’s who don’t know what an appropriate bet is.

The bet pot button takes away the element of…god forbid…having to think and come up with a bet amount all on your own. That’s the idea that I genuinely dislike because the bet pot button is automatic to an enormous amount of players. Not right or wrong, good or bad, just my opinion. I hope this clears things up. GL all!

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