Texas Holdem Bet-Sizing
By Ronald Norris
Texas Holdem Bet-Sizing
One of the trickiest things to learn in No Limit Texas Holdem is how to size your bets correctly. We’ve already introduced the idea of maximizing expectation when you have the nuts on the river. But what if there are more cards to come?
The right bet size in Texas Holdem depends on your goals for the bet, the size of the stacks, psychology, and a number of other factors.
Ironically, though the ability to size your bets is the defining feature of no limit Texas Holdem poker (as opposed to limit Texas Holdem poker), many Holdem players spend almost no time thinking about how much to bet. They’ll just default to a "standard" amount, or they’ll let their emotions decide for them.
In this article, we’ll give you some theoretical guidelines for deciding how much to bet when play Holdem. There’s no "cookbook" formula for deciding the right bet sizes, but after you read this article you should know what factors to consider when you make your decision.
The Basic Rule of Bet-Sizing
Generally analyses should start with the simple case and add complexities. We’ll do that too, and thus we offer the (hopefully obvious) basic rule.
If your Holdem opponent’s poker hand is worse than yours, and it’s fairly obvious what it might be, bet more than he can profitably call.
For instance, say you have
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on a
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board. Your Holdem opponent has checked to you in a $100 pot. Both you and your opponent have $400 behind. Based on the flop action, you think your opponent almost certainly has a diamond flush draw. (Ignore, for now, how you would know his poker hand so precisely. We’ll soon get to imprecise situations.)
Nine river cards (any diamond except the two on board and the two he has) give him a winner. Therefore, he is a 3.9-to-l dog (9/44) to beat you. Bet enough so that you offer him implied odds of less than 3.9-to-l. Because you know his poker hand exactly, his implied odds are no better than the pot odds because you can fold if a third diamond comes. That is, if he draws out, his total win will be $100 plus whatever you decide to bet. A $40 bet offers 3.5-to-l pot odds ($140-to-$40), so bet at least that much. (That $40 bet is the theoretical answer. In Texas Holdem practice, you can expect him to call much more than $40 since he thinks he can often win a bet on the river if he hits.)
Read also:
Texas Holdem Betting tips:
When Your Opponent Could Have One of Several Draws
Don’t Bet Too Much
How Big Do You Want Their Mistake to Be?
Expectation and Multiple Possible Hands
Don’t Take Away Their Rope
Your Opponent Thinks He May Have the Best Hand
You Might Not Have the Best Poker Hand
