Hand Advice
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I have a question and theory on this topic and look forward to any and all responses to this. I read in another forum that said you should keep your betting consistent. I have to agree with this. I believe that in betting the same all the time doesnt show weakness and it doesnt show strength. I think it would be hard for the others to know exactly what you got if you bet the same all the time. You could hold AA or 72 or J9. If you consistently bet the same, how would they be able to pick up what you have? I remember Phil Gordon saying one time to make your bets between 2.5 to 5 times the BB. What is the proper betting strategy for cash games and/or tournaments? What works for you guys? Thanks for reading my post.
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Adam
(Costa Rica)
11,652
Posts.
Joined
12-21-2004.
02-25-2005 2:09 PM
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I played with Phil in Aruba, and he pretty much always raised the same amounts preflop throughout each blind level, and I agree somewhat with doing that. I definitely DO NOT agree with doing this post-flop. Sometimes you need to make someone pay the max for a draw...other times you can bet smaller to see where you're at or to trap someone into going over the top. The amount of your bet, just like so many other things, is situational. Being able to vary your betting post-flop is an important part of tournament strategy, one that should not be overlooked.
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Cal
(Costa Rica)
3,593
Posts.
Joined
12-15-2004.
02-25-2005 4:22 PM
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Hey magic, good question. While keeping your bets consistent will mask your strength, it will also cause you to miss out on many opportunities to take advantage of the No Limit betting structure.
Unlimited betting amounts allow you to exacerbate the mistakes your opponents make in calling your bets (giving them bad odds). You should focus much more on these situations and learn how to take advantage of them. Aside from forcing mistakes from your opponents, there are other times where you need to control the size of the pot to avoid committing yourself to it. There also exist opportunities to fool your opponents by the size of your bet, which is even more valuable that simply masking your own strength. Betting is your weapon in No Limit Holdem - you want to make every effort to maximize it. Try to learn each opponent's behavior and vary your bets to get that opponent to react how you want them to. This is by no means an easy skill to acquire - its one I work on everyday, and it's one I feel the best players have mastered.
The best discussion I've ever read on betting in No Limit Holdem comes from Harrington's new book "Harrington on Holdem." I would recommend this book to both new and experienced players.
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What kind of betting structure would you recommend? What I have been doing lately is betting 4 times whatever the big blind is. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. I am seeing that it doesnt work as much as I want it to. I have even tried betting half of whatever the pot is. That works also. But it can hurt you if you arent careful. Any kind of guideline would be a big help. Its a starting point anyway. Thanks for your response.
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Adam
(Costa Rica)
11,652
Posts.
Joined
12-21-2004.
02-25-2005 8:57 PM
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I think you should start keeping stats, at least to some extent, of how often you're winning the pots you raise. Remember that before antes are there, there is only 1.5x the big blind in play, so you are risking 4x the BB to win 1.5x the BB. If you're picking up a good number of these pots post flop, or your frequent raises are causing you to get good action on your big hands, then it's probably good. If you're getting reraised half the time and having to fold or you're getting looked up quite a bit and ending up losing the hands, you may want to reconsider raising so much. The nice thing about a 2.5x raise is that you're not raising much more than what you're trying to take down, so your ratio of blind steals to times called doesn't need to be nearly as high to consider it a successful play. It also all depends on how good your postflop play is....I'd say the better you are at playing post flop (which is absolutely 100% integral in winning), the more often you can raise smaller amounts and play medium sized pots with success.
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I was thinking about this earlier in the week (clearly not enough to do).
I think the 3 to 5 times BB (plus any limps already in the pot) is essentially a hangover from pot-limit, where it's around the size of a pot raise (you call, then raise the new size of the pot). With just the blinds in, you could call 1BB then raise another 2.5BB.
So 3xBB + limps is actually slightly less than a pot raise. It generally works for me, although some cash games seem to settle by some unspoken convention on 4 or even 5 BBs as the "standard" raise. It seems to price out the drawing hands, unless the game is so loose that there will still be several in the pot for the flop.
When to move away from a standard raise is an interesting conundrum. Two occasions spring to mind most readily. One is whe you are short-stacked, when the raise is going to involve more than, say, 40% of your stack, leaving you pot-committed - so might as well push before the flop has a chance to depress you. The other is when you've flopped a monster (and you've already established your standard raise for a range of hands). In a tight game someone may read (misread) you as trying to steal from a relatively weak hand, or out of position. Suggest AA or KK for that one...
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Thanks for the tips guys. I played 2 tournaments between today and last night at www.bet365poker.com. One was a freeroll and the other was a 1 dollar tourney. In the freeroll I finished in the 90s and won $6.50. In the $1 tourney I made the final table and won $8.17. In both tournaments if I had a hand I would raise 4x bb before the flop. Then post flop, I would bet half the pot. It worked out great for the most part. If I got some resistance from other players, I got out immediately. Does this sound like a good strategy?
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At those levels it sounds fine. You'd be amazed just how far you can go playing ABC, by-the-book, plain old vanilla poker. Sticking to that instantly gives you an advantage of maybe 50% of the players in those fields, which ought to make them nicely profitable over a period of time. Keep looking for opportunities to expand your game, though: don't get locked into one style - as you progress you're going to need to be able to change your style according to the situation in whcih you find yourself. And remember that Multis can be fairly high variance, so expect cash-free runs to happen. But I'm only about break-even for multis, so I'm no guru here!
If you go looking at SNGs, then I recommend studying Adam's article: it's solid stuff.
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I made another final table in a 1 dollar tourney at www.bet365poker.com using this strategy I noted in a previous post. I am liking the results I am getting. Of course first place would be great. But making the final table is good enough for me for now.
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