Tournament bet sizing is a complicated subject because it
varies so much. You can be betting what equates to 1% of your
stack when an even begins and later on the blinds alone will
comprise 10% of what you have left. This is just one of the
unique dynamics of tournament play that will come up again and
again. The ability to effectively adjust bet sizing is one of
the primary skills that sets winning tournament players apart
from the rest. You might think that this is one of the easiest
things to do, but it certainly is not.

I’m sure you have, and you made decisions based on this read. Well, don’t let your opponents read this in your sizing. Keep your sizing consistent between your steals and your value hands. Cash Game Steal Bet Sizing. A 3bb bet needs to work 67% of the time as a bluff (3/4.5). Constructing the right range to 3-bet for value The goal when you 3-bet for value is to get more money in the pot with a hand that has an advantage over your opponent’s range. As a guideline, the weakest hand in your value 3betting range should have around 55% equity against your opponent’s continuing range. I 3-bet Tom Braband (bot)'s apparent c-bet on the flop. I figured I was ahead of anything besides TT+ or Qx, or an unlikely 8 (Q-8-8 board). The bet was successful in getting him to fold, but I am also curious if the sizing was right. Sports Betting Poker 100% up to $1,000 NLOP Free Global Poker Free Gold Coins. Here are three hands where bet-sizing tells can influence you to make better decisions. All of these hands are. Choosing the best bet size in poker is important, and can be helpful to winning games. Check National League of Poker for more articles and the best games.

There is much more to consider in bet sizing than relative
stack sizes alone. You will need to know what your goal is, the
likelihood of a fold, your post-flop plans, and so on and so
forth. Raising from under the gun with a strong hand is entirely
different than raising from the button in an attempt to
steal. Sure, the blinds and stack sizes may be static, but
the purpose of your play is entirely different. This is one way
that you can easily identify whether or not a player knows what
they are doing.

If you see someone who is raising in late
position with no limpers to the same amount as when they raise
from middle position with two limpers, you can be all but
positive that they are a weak player. Bet sizing, especially in
tournaments, has virtually limitless scenarios that can and
should be considered. In time you will develop a feel for what
makes the most logical sense in most every spot, but in this
article we are going to cover some of the more common bet sizing
strategies in tourney play.

Pre-Flop Bet Sizing

Pre-flop bet sizing should be one of the easier areas to
master. There are two main reasons why you would be making a
raise pre-flop, and they are either for value or as a bluff
(steal). The first thing that you should do is ensure that these
two are seldom going to be for the same amount. Raising with
jacks in middle position should not be the same thing as
stealing on the button. A simple analysis of your motivations
will lead you to the most logical bet sizing strategy.

With a strong hand, your goal is to thin out the field while
also getting as much value as possible. This means that you
should be raising enough that you are winning a decent amount of
chips, but not so much that you are blowing everyone out of the
pot. Making pre-flop raises with strong hands is not something that
requires too much practice. If there is one thing that you
should be sure of, it is that you are not playing too passively.
Tournament players like to suck people in when they have big
hands, but this can easily back fire after the flop. Be
aggressive, but be smart at the same time.

When making steal attempts (and you should be doing this
often, especially late in tournaments), your raises do not need
to be all that large. If you were making open raises to 3x or 4x
the big blind, a steal on the button to 2.5x would work just
fine. You should be making your raises large enough to get folds
from the players left in the hand, but not large enough that you
are wasting money. There is a thin line between small bets that
garner folds and bets that find folds but also put unnecessary
amounts of money on the line.

You shouldn’t be min raising, but making normal sized raises when you are attempting to
steal a pot pre-flop is just overkill. Your raise size should correlate
loosely with your hand strength and more directly with how many
folds you need to get from your opponents. On the button, raise
small, one off the button, raise a tad larger, and so on and so
forth.

Bet Sizing for Value

Bet sizing for value is arguably the most important thing
that you can do in tournament poker. Aside from knowing the most
optimal shove/fold/steal situations, making the most from your
big hands has to be the most primary way in which players build
up their stacks. When you are able to both make a strong hand
and string your opponent along the whole way, things are going
to be shaping up in your favor.

The first thing that you need to do is to determine your
opponent’s likeliness of calling your bets. In order to do this,
you should first put them on a range of hands. You should be
able to scale your bet sizing according to their strength. If
you think that a player is very strong, betting out hard on all
three streets will be your most viable move. If you think they
are weak, checking and then making slower bets would be more
practical.

Usually, getting someone to call off their stack is going to
be easier in a tournament than it is in a cash game or even a
sit and go. The reason for this is that once you can get someone
to put in a significant amount of their chips, their willingness
to fold is going to drop way down. A lot of players won’t have
the will power or determination to fold even once it is apparent
that they are beat. You should be using this to your advantage
as much as possible.

Cash game players are more likely to
surrender with less money left because they are just a re-buy
away from a healthy stack. If you can procure 50% of a player’s
tournament stack away, however, a river over bet to get the last
50% is not out of the question. Tournament players are ecstatic
at the idea of creating a big stack through one sizable hand,
and they despise the idea of giving most of their chips away
only to fold. You can use these traits of tournament players to
make larger turn and river bets than you would otherwise deem
reasonable.

Bet Sizing in Bluffs and Against Passive Players

These two areas of bet sizing in tournaments can generally be
lumped together. Both bluffs and moves against passive players
have one ultimate goal in mind: achieve a fold with the least
risk possible. Keeping this in mind, it will almost always be
best to aim low. If a player is known for how tight they are,
you shouldn’t have much reason to believe that they are going to
be suddenly calling down your bets light. Small continuation
bets and small check raises are very effective in these spots
because they accomplish the goal of scaring off your opponent. A
lot of tournament players fear elimination and prefer to play
only in pots where they feel extremely comfortable. If you can
inject a bit of intimidation into these more passive players,
your odds of success in finding folds is much increased.

Bet-sizing tells are one of the core tools of the live no-limit player. Players leak so much information in the amounts they choose to bet that it’s no overstatement to say that mastering bet-sizing tells may be the most important live small stakes no-limit skill.
Here are three hands where bet-sizing tells can influence you to make better decisions. All of these hands are played at $2-$5 with $1,000 stacks.

Hand 1

In the first hand, a player limps, then an active player raises to $25. The cutoff calls, and you call on the button with 8 6. The blinds fold, and the limper calls. There are four players to the flop, and $107 in the pot.

The flop comes J 8 4. The limper checks, as does the preflop raiser. The next player bets $35.

This flop is loosely connected and features a possible club flush draw. A typical player with a strong hand like A-J or K-J would feel a specific way about the situation. After the preflop raiser checks, they would typically assume they likely held the best hand. But the board has some straight and flush draw possibilities, and with three opponents, the player would want to bet solidly to protect their hand.

So if the flop bettor held one of these strong hands, I would expect a bet shaded to the bigger size—at least $50 and maybe $60 or $70.

The $35 bet is more likely to be a hand like J-9 or 9-9 or an eight or a draw than one of the stronger hands.

You just have middle pair, and there’s a good chance you’re behind, but I would call. You could possibly raise immediately to challenge the bettor, but against many opponents, it’s unnecessary. Calling lets you see how the action develops behind you without committing too much to the pot. If the big blind check-raises, you can get away cheaply. If, say, one of the other two players calls, you then get to see the turn action before you have to commit to something.

Some cautious players I know would fold in this situation, but I think the bet-sizing tell along with the cheap price makes calling better.

Hand 2

Two players limp, and you raise to $25 from two off the button with K Q. The big blind calls, as does one of the limpers.

The flop comes K 8 7. Your opponents check, and you bet $60 into the $82 pot. The big blind calls, and the other player folds. The turn is the 8. Your opponent bets $80 into the $202 pot. You call. The river is the 5, making a final board of K 8 7 8 5. Your opponent bets $250 into the $362 pot.

The small turn bet could be one of two things. First, it could be an eight. Second, it could be a player with a weak hand like K-10 or a draw looking to freeze the betting for a cheap card.

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Line

For some players, the small bet would be significantly more likely to be one of the weaker hands than the eight (perhaps because you’d expect the player to try a check-raise with trips). For other players, the small bet could be more likely to be trips because they’d play the weaker hands more passively. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you don’t have a strong read which way this opponent leans, so you decide to call the turn.

The sizing of the river bet inclines me to believe that this player has trips, and I would fold. On the turn, the player bet $80 into $202, or less than half the pot. Also the bet is less than $100, which is something of a magic number in these games—bets bigger than $100 tend to be a bit more serious in general than those less than $100. So this turn bet I’d characterize as small.

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Chart

On the river, however, the player bets more than two-thirds of the pot and way, way more than the $100 threshold. This is a large bet in this context.

In general, the betting pattern of small bet leading into a large bet is a strong pattern. Players at this level who bet small, and then when called, decide to bet substantially larger on the next street tend to have hands they’re trying to get real value with. Holding K-Q as a preflop raiser, you have exactly the sort of hand your opponent would expect you to have. If he’s going to value, he probably has you beat. So I would fold.

It’s the small-to-big pattern that really seals this fold for me. The flop contained a lot of draws that bricked out. It’s not an unreasonable board for an opponent to try to bluff on. So I wouldn’t automatically fold K-Q to any old betting from this opponent. But this particular pattern suggests strength often enough that I don’t think it’s worth calling getting less than 3-to-1.

Hand 3

A player open-raises to $20 from five off the button. A player calls. You call with Q J in the cutoff. The button calls. The blinds both fold. There’s $107 in the pot and four players.

The flop comes J 10 6. The preflop raiser bets $60, and the next player folds. You call. The button folds. There’s $207 in the pot.

The turn is the 7. Your opponent bets $100, and you call.

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Chart

The river is the 3. Your opponent checks.

The bet-sizing in this hand tells a fairly clear story about what the preflop raiser is likely to have. Betting $60 into $100 on the flop isn’t a massive bet, but it’s a very solid bet into three players. Hands like K-J, A-J, K-K, and so forth are all in play. Of course, the preflop raiser could also hold K-Q, A-K, a flush draw, or some other hand as well. The $60 bet isn’t definitive one way or the other.

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Tool

The $100 bet on the turn, however, is decidedly small, given the situation. It suggests the preflop raiser is now playing defensively. Since the flush came in, there’s a good chance he’s got one pair. He doesn’t want to give a free card to a hand like a lone diamond or a straight draw, but he also doesn’t want to commit a ton of money to the pot in case you already have a flush.

The check after the river bricks is further confirmation of this hypothesis. It would be a relative longshot for this player to first have a flush (already uncommon), and then to play it with this strong-to-weak betting pattern.

There’s a good chance your opponent is very concerned you have a flush. There’s also a good chance your hand is no good. It’s worth considering a bluff here—and if you bluff, you really should make a strong play at the pot. A $400 bet into this $427 pot should have an excellent chance to win.

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Odds

Final Thoughts

Poker 3 Bet Sizing Guide

Bet-sizing tells can give you a great picture of what your opponents are doing in no-limit hands. If you learn to leverage this information, you can become one of the best players at your level. ♠

Upswing Poker 3 Bet Sizing

Ed’s newest book, The Course: Serious Hold ‘Em Strategy For Smart Players is available now at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the training site redchippoker.com.