Online Poker Forum - How do you break bad habits....question on bet/rse sizes

MISISIPI-BECK

As most of you know,i am an average player at best. I have been working on my online game for awhile now,it's just takeing me longer than most because i am ridiculously hard-headed.

The problem im working on now is bet/rse sizes.....i have very bad habit of useing the pot rse option as my standard,any situation raise.Now my poker playing friend and idle mr, tracysanders,a great american..as well as my MTT yoda mr. LoveBeefStew both recomend 2 1/2 time the BB in just about all situations.

I would like to get a few other opinions on bet and rse sizes,especially in SNG play.

Sand Wedge_100 · Message Board Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 1545

Doesnt sound like either of them TBH
Kinda depends on ur stack IMO but my normal raise is 3x bb till the blinds reach 100 then 2.5 till the antes kick in then usually 2.5xbb or whatever is in the pot if 1st in
Pot raises are ok at the lower levels I guess but later ur commited allin for the next bet and is just spew.
JD will be around with sound advice ---advise----oh hell listen to him lol do we want to do this again??

NilesMonkey · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:52 pm Post subject:

Preflop: I usually stick with 3XBB raises, plus 1BB for each limper already in. As the blinds increase, I notch it down to somewhere around 2.75XBB or so.

Post-flop: C-bet's I usually go with in between 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot, depending on the opposition I'm up against. If the villain is tight i lean towards one half, if villain is loose I will go up higher (or not c-bet at all, if villain has no ability to fold). I usually do the same with my value bets, but sometimes I will over-valuebet the pot if I think my opponent will call.

As far as raising, I use my opponent's bet as a base and at least triple it (unless my opponent is min-betting, in which case I ignore it and raise it to whatever I would have c-bet at the time, plus a little extra).

Note: I'm posting this 20% as advice and 80% to get feedback on my own style. Very Happy

Danduy · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject:

The preflop raise:

Here i like vary some of the raises to get some confusion. This works in most of the times. I will vary between 2x or 3x BB. Why? When i'm in early position and i get a hand i want to see a flop with like TJs or i just raise 2x BB. This will get me the same effect and costs less. Even so you are the aggressor and not the limper makes this play actually cheap and still if you hit, the pot will be big enough.
I will also do this in later positions to encourage a reraise with my bigger hands. The downside is that when i do this with AA in the CO seat, i will see the flop 4 handend often. When this happens i keep this in mind for the next time and raise some bigger. With vurnareble (or someting) like TT or JJ i make a bigger raise. I try to blend them all in the mix. And also the biggest advantage is that at the later levels blind stealing will be very cheap because they never know why you raise only 2xBB (is it AK or just 56s).
And like said before by Sand Wedge. when the blinds go up, smaller raises also do the trick and have the same effect because pot commitment is not far away

The pot sized raise:

Clicking pot and raise is not bad. Because there are some players who like to bet 100$ into a 450$ pot for blocking purpose or giving themselves the right odds to draw at a flush or so. When you raise their bet three times, there is a 850$ pot and they need to call 200 still giving them those 4/1 odds. If you raise pot size, these odds will be slimmer so they can't call with a profit and need the implied odds to make some profit should they make their hand. If i see such a small bet, especialy with a call, i will most off the times make a large raise when i have air or a big hand, not a mediocre one. So i can put my hand down or call with no hesitation should there be played back at me, but mostly they are folowed by folds.

But then again a 2,5x BB raise has best of both worlds.

- It is a little cheaper when played back on
- It gives the same result as a bigger raise
- It builds the pot big enough to take a stack if needed to.

There can be a lot of discussion about this matter. If you use the same raise always, it also is hard to put someone on a hand. But i like to see some cheaper flops with mediocre hands with a lot of potential and invest a little less in blind stealing.

DforDissent · Royal Flush Joined: 30 Mar 2009 Posts: 669

PFR size depends on a lot of factors.

1. your image -- have you been getting hit over the head with the deck, but haven't shown your strong starters? You'll probably get called more loosely because they think you're a maniac, raise a larger amount with premiums, and a smaller amount with junk (since you will obv. fold if they re-raise you), but fold the medium (i.e. easily-dominated) hands. However, if you've rarely seen a flop the last few orbits, raise a smaller amount with a premium hand so you don't scare them all away, but raise a larger amount if your first raising chance is with junk because you will be representing KK/AA and will get the blinds.

2. tightness/stacks/blind -- obviously if your stack, or the remaining players' stacks, are tiny compared to the blinds, then shove-or-fold might be the required choice, or even limp-shove or limp-fold (if the table is super-tight, I've had this happen at cash games as well as SnG, where there are a few people with similar sized stacks so they are truly "waiting" for a premium hand to play for a raise, and don't want to limp in for fear of a raise behind them, etc.)

Heck, sometimes pre-bubble the table is so tight, when most have 10bb or less, I can LIMP-steal from almost any position almost every hand, the table is that tight -- all will fold including the SB (unless QQ/KK/AA) and only the BB will check and I can win almost every flop with a small bet since he presumes I have at least a pair or Ace-high, vs. his "random hand". Once I tripled my stack before the bubble burst*, by doing exactly this (and shutting down on the turn when they finally called, since I knew they actually had a hand this time, so there would be easier places to win chips than this hand). *7bb once 4handed, 22bb once 3handed, never seeing a showdown!

3. payouts -- if in a SnG or MTT, obviously you might want to raise a larger or smaller amount to steal more or less blinds than "normal", depending on how easy the rest of the table is making it for you. Sometimes pre-bubble is mega-stealing time, sometimes ON the bubble. And sometimes neither (in which case you have no choice but to sit back and wait for a monster, and raise it a lot bigger than the steal-a-holics have been raising).

4. position -- Chris Ferguson has suggested 2bb from UTG/UTG+1 and 2.5bb from MP..HJ, and 3bb from CO+, presumably because it hides the strength of your hand and balances out the strength-impression observant opponents will presume based on the position. Of course, if there is a calling station on the button you can probably do these consistent raise sizes for most hands but raise a lot bigger (for value) with premium hands. And if a late position maniac always raises limpers, then early/middle limping and even over-limping with premium hands might be the best play.

Other stuff has to be considered too, especially the skill level of your table, but the above is what I just thought of on the spur of the moment. Just make sure you don't let your raise size scream your hand strength, unless you know for sure the majority of your opponents are too stupid/lazy/apathetic to notice and will call/fold the same no matter the size of your raise. Oh, and their post-flop tendencies are important to think about, too -- since some tight-weaks will often call a big raise preflop but fold 60% or even 70% of flops, while others will float every flop even when their AsKc totally misses the 8h7h5h flop, since they so rarely invest in a raised pot and don't want to fold after waiting so long to see a flop...

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