Bet size fundamentals

Ok guys I need you to set my head straight on betting philosophy. I haven't read any poker books yet or else I would know.

When you are on the receiving end of a bet you can calculate your calling odds from the outs, and from that you know whether to fold or call.

When you are the one who is betting (with e.g. TPTK), the question is whether to bet higher or lower than the odds of the opponent.

Let me make clear that I play only on 2NL so far, and players here are quite bad and often don't know what is good for them.
Therefore, when I bet on the flop, I bet higher than their odds. Often, with a flush draw or open-ender, the odds to call will be 30-35% or 1/3. So I bet very high, twice the pot, which means they have to chip in 40 %. They shouldn't do this, but often in the micros they do anyway, which is great.

BUT: I know that in higher level poker, post-flop bets are usually more in the range of pot size, meaning the caller has good odds with his flush draw or whatever.

So here is my question: Is the philosophy of betting that you give the opponent good odds, but you trust you are able to pull out when you are beat?
In other words, you invite the guy to play because you know you will still beat him 2 times out of 3. And when he hits, you recognise the danger card, and you are ready to pull out if he gives resistance, and thus your losses are minimized.
And this is a profitable strategy in the long run?

Sorry for the long argument, I hope I get some good input on this.

I don't see the logic in betting lower than the odds unless you are slowplaying. You don't want to slowplay a lot of hands, only very strong ones. I always try to bet at least half the pot if I figure I am ahead and don't know the players at the table.

I like betting 1/3 on flop and 2/3 on turn, depending on board textures and stuff.

pot pot shove.

Is your best bet for value against the 2nl fish, obviously with value holdings. So betting just under pot on the flop, same pretty much for the turn so on the river we can put villain all in without overbetting the pot.

Edit: On your example where you bet 2x the pot, you're right the opponent needs 40% equity to make the call but just betting pot is enough for a single street as this would mean they would need 33% equity and when on a draw they're gonna have like 16-18% per street.

I can see that at 2NL but at slightly higher stakes I think it's huge spew to take such lines with either value or bluff lines.

But the "2 and 4 rule" says you have twice as good a chance of hitting your draw if you have both the turn and the river coming.

By this rule the caller has 30-35% equity on the flop. So if I am the one with a flush draw, I refer to this rule and I will thus call your pot sized bet.

Both tactics can't be right at the same time.

just doing a little math if you are heads up with one other player on the flop and lets say you have top pair 7's or something just for the heck of it, if you think they have 2 over cards giving them 6 outs betting around half the pot would be fine gives them 3 to 1 pot odds, and odds of winning the hand are around 3.1 to 1 making it still a +EV play, but if you can get them to call for more than half the pot then in the long run this would be good, something like open ended straight draw 8 outs and their odds of winning are about 2.125 of winning the hand you should bet around the pot at this point (88.88% or higher)(general equation being 100/x+1=2.125 in this case or sub in 3.1 instead of 2.215 for the first case)(and to get these numbers u can do number of outs times 4 after flop and times 2 after turn to get percentages from there u can just do 100-percentage/percentages to get those numbers)(or u could just work with percentages which i find a bit easier and faster)(pot odds percentages are just calculated by (Bet/(Pot+Bet)), so for example $100 pot person bets $30 after the flop you'd have $30/$130 pot odds =23% so in that situation according to pot odds it would only be good to call with 6 outs or more which would give you 24% chance of winning the hand)(an easier quick way to get pot odds percentage is approximate bets so in like the one listed above $30 into pot of $100 say the thirty is 1/3 of the pot then you'd have 1/4 pot odds = 25%, but as you can see calculating this way changes it a little bit and would make calling with 6 outs a bad play (you always want your odds of winning the hand to be larger than the pot odds) ... but even then calling can be justified for them because of the implied odds they receive if you are going to call a bet after they make their hand.

hope this helps a little

If all the money goes in at this point then the percentage is correct as there can be no further betting and therefore those ARE the odds you are facing.
But, if this is just a pot sized bet and you call it with what you think is 33% equity, what happens when the villian bets on the turn? your odds have all gone wrong.

That fact is, that in this instance you are calling for 1 street and, unless you hit, you will have to call a further bet on the turn, possibly a big one, with 1 street odds again.
This is what you have to take into account after the flop.

So in normal circumstances, there is no "2 and 4" rule, more of a "2 and 2" rule.... I will have to make some changes if that is so.

Yes, I think the 4 rule referring to turn and river odds is really most useful for an all-in situation post flop, when you are truly estimating odds for two more streets.

Otherwise you would treat each street seperately, these are the expressed odds, however when making a decision post flop it is sometimes correct to also take into account your 'implied odds', that is, the extra chips that you can expect the villian to contribute to the pot later if you should hit, (or indeed the extra chips that you would need to contribute later if you should not hit, the reverse implied odds) For this reason it is often correct to call with slightly unfavourable odds if you feel that you will get paid off if your hand hits (sometimes of course, if your flush card falls you won't get any more chips out of your opponent)

Why do you not talk in the cash thread?We are mostly laid back an talk sh*t
***Assploding August Cash Game Chat Thread***

tbh I don't play much cash... and I'm still finding out which topics I am interested in.

thanks though, I will give it a look

I am in the cash forum already, taht's a good forum.

I started the thread in the current forum because I felt it was very basic information that I needed. But maybe not