A quick recap: I decided two weeks ago to dive into no-limit hold ‘em and learn that game from the ground up. I’ve been playing limit hold ‘em (shorthanded, in the last few months) almost exclusively up until now but have started feeling like the game was more of a grind than a fun hobby. So to spice things up, I came to this change of venue.

I’ve also decided to document insights I come to as I learn more about the game. To my help, I have the recently-received copy of Ed Miller’s and David Sklansky’s No-Limit Hold ‘em - Theory and Practise, which is very helpful. So this is the third post on what I’ve learned. This week, I’ve picked up quite a nugget:

The size of my bet should be in relation to what I think my opponent is holding, not to what I’m holding.

It seems so obvious now, but it wasn’t before to me. See, here’s what I realized (and I feel like a fool for not realizing it before): When I bet, I’m not betting on the relative strength of my hand, I’m betting to try to elicit a wanted response from the hand I think my opponent is likely to be holding. Let me give an example of what I’m talking about, and I’ll use limit as the starting point:

I hold the monster starting hand, A-A, on the button in limit. One middle position player raises before me and I 3-bet. Both blinds fold and the middle position guy calls. 7 small bets in the pot.

He checks to me, and I bet. Why? Because I figure to have a better hand than he has. The flop doesn’t even matter at this point, I will bet almost no matter what comes up. This is extremely standard for limit. When I figure to have the best hand, I will usually bet and raise. Sometimes, the situation dictates a different play, but for 95% of the flops, this is the way A-A will be played.

But what about no-limit? All of a sudden, things become tricky. The “standard” play is for some players to bet the pot, some players bet half the pot… But what considerations should I make before I decide how much to bet? I should bet however much I think I can bet to get him to do something he shouldn’t!

What’s his most likely hand? My bet on the flop will depend heavily on what I perceive it to be. If he has a pocket pair, any bet I make that he calls will be a mistake on his part (he would need odds of 22-1 to continue). If he has two overcards to the flop, he’s in almost as bad a situation; he’d need to pair up twice or hit running trips. Again, any bet I make is a mistake on his part. Here, I’m looking to sweeten the pot, not drive him out.

But if he made a pair with any of the cards on the board, like if he has QJ and the flop is Q-8-3, he has 5 outs to beat me, which roughly translates to odds of 8-1. He won’t really know that he’s in such bad shape though, so he’ll likely call a bigger bet than that if he did hit top pair.

But we also need to realize that if he missed the flop completely, he’s not calling any bet at all. So we don’t really need to take these cases into consideration because they won’t affect the bet size (they may affect whether or not we decide to bet in the first place, but if we are going to bet, we don’t need to be concerned about hands that will fold anyway). How much would a pocket pair or a one-pair hand call? Maybe not a pot-sized bet. I’d guess that they’d both call a 1/3 of the pot bet, though, if they think I’m just continuation betting and am trying to steal the pot.

How much would a flopped monster, say a set, call? Anything, of course. Again, my bet size won’t make a flopped set play incorrectly, because they will always call (or raise).

If there’s a flushdraw on the table, or a possible straight draw, I need to be more careful. I need to bet enough to make it a mistake to draw to a flush or a straight as well.

After factoring in all these things, I need to make a decision on how big of a bet to make, based on what kind of hand I think my opponent has, and what kind of mistake I want him to make. One third of the pot on a rainbow flop is probably getting called by any hand that has anything, and at the same time will force a player with a worse hand make a mistake.

… Etc.

This isn’t thinking that I’m used to making, but I’m starting to pick up on it. It’s good to think about when I have a hand, but it’s even more useful to think about when I don’t! If I raise preflop with AK and get a caller, how much should I bet on a Q-8-3 flop? Before, I was concerned about trying to get him to make an incorrect call. Now I’m more concerned about him making an incorrect fold. But given that I won’t get a monster to fold, I need to focus on the hands that I can get to fold, specifically medium pocket pairs and hands like 8-7.

So here’s the converse situation: If betting half the pot will fold out the same number of hands that betting the entire pot will, why should I risk more chips? If a guy with 6-6 will fold to a half-pot bet, and a guy with 8-7 will fold to a half-pot bet, but a guy with QJ isn’t folding to even a pot-sized bet, I may as well try to make my steal cheap. There’s no point in making a big bluff, because the big bluff is going to be called by (mostly) the same hands as a small bluff.

I need (a lot) more practise at this, but the basic idea has stuck. Practise, practise, practise.

Quote of the day:
“This Joke Has Gone A Little Too Far”

(One of the 10 phrases listed on the company’s Beijing office walls as “useful” when they’re practising English)

Cheers,
FP