Turn and River Bet Sizing in Cash Games

Typically I bet 70%-100% of the pot on the flop, turn and river. There are rare occasions that I'll bet more or less, but most often it's in that range.
There's no great reason why I bet that amount, it just works on the flop because it achieves a lot of calls for your good hands and let's you steal a few pots. I continue with 70%-100% of the pot on the turn and river out of habbit mostly.


However I've recently started wondering if I missed a poker lesson somewhere along the line and it should be obvious that I should be betting a lot more on the turn and river to get better value for my hands and to bluff more effectively.

I wonder how much does everyone else here bet on the turn and river, does this differ from your flop bets?
Why do you bet that amount?

This is a really broad question so I'm going to give a broad answer. In general, HA is better for this kind of thing.

Think about what you want to accomplish and adjust it based on any reads you have. What range do you have your opponent on and what do you want them to do? Based off of this, what bet size best accomplishes your goal?

For example, if you are against a calling station and you are betting for value, bet somewhat larger as few will notice and fewer will adjust. If you are betting for value with a monster against a bluffy raise/fold type player, bet smaller to induce. If you are betting for value against someone who you think is really weak, bet smaller on the river to give them better odds to call.

Overbetting is often beneficial in situations where you have the nuts on scary river boards. If you hold a boat on a 4 flush board, overbetting would be appropriate against fish. If you hold AQ on a KJT9x board, there is a strong likelihood you get a call from a Qx.

Small river bluffs work if you have a bricked draw vs draw read where you beat nothing. This generally requires some reads and is best done when balancing your range against small river value bets when you think your opponent is very weak.

As a couple rules of thumb, if you do at least some bet size balancing, you can generally get away with betting larger for value and smaller for bluffs. Also big pots should be for big hands and small pots for small hands.

Do you change the way you bet on the turn compared to the flop?

The reason I'm asking about bet sizing is because I've recently run into quite a few players who routinely overbet the turn and river. Stealing a lot of pots against any opponent who doesn't adjust their calling range which makes them a lot of money because the pots are usually large by this stage in the hand, and on subsequent hands forces their opponents into making decisions for their entire stack (because of the implied river bet) with marginal hands.

there's alot to bet sizing and why you might bet more or less. but betting 100% on the flop and over betting the turn is a huge leak IMO. these are the players who you can trap easily. they also tend to check there strong hands. wurlyq makes some good points. i think its more important to know why your betting and make the bet the appropriate size. if your betting to protect the hand bet enough to charge the draws, but not too much to chase them out. if your bluffing bet enough(but not more) to get the job done. if your betting for value bet the amount you think will be called. board texture, your opponents hand range, your opponents tendencies, stack sizes, how much is in the pot already all these have an effect on your betting decisions. but when in doubt make it 2/3 the pot.

thepokerkid123 said:

Do you change the way you bet on the turn compared to the flop?

The reason I'm asking about bet sizing is because I've recently run into quite a few players who routinely overbet the turn and river. Stealing a lot of pots against any opponent who doesn't adjust their calling range which makes them a lot of money because the pots are usually large by this stage in the hand, and on subsequent hands forces their opponents into making decisions for their entire stack (because of the implied river bet) with marginal hands.

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Are you asking how to play against someone who varies bet sizes? This is a totally different question than OP.

As before, it really depends. However a repeated, a standard cbet, overpot, overpot line is quite exploitable assuming they dont have a hand every time. The correct adjustment is very villain dependent.

Are they just a spewmonkey or is it a good LAG barreling against weak tights? Against a total spewmonkey, you can call lighter (just remember BRM cause this makes your variance shoot up). Against a good LAG, trap as cardplayer has mentioned. To add a little more, tighten up your opening range and avoid being OOP. Semi bluff jamming decent draws if the flop pot is of moderate size should also be profitable.

I'm not asking how to play them, I'm asking for opinions about turn and river bet sizes.

I already make a lot of money off of these guys, but it seems I'm one of the very few regulars who does make money off of them, the better players amongst them cash out big very regularly. Which has made me curious.

I'm hoping to find someone around here who does this same heavy turn betting effectively, or has some insight into this strategy. I'm also a little curious if this is a common strategy, which is why I asked for how a semi-random group of players (you guys) make your turn and river bets.

I can gather from the responses that it's not a more common strategy than I thought, but I still have no further insight into how they do it.

very nice question and a good post...
i would bet depending on the hand though rather than depending on the flop, turn or river...
well if i had a good hand post flop, i would raise 1xpot...and if its the best hand postflop i raise 3xpot....and if i wanted to bluff, i try raising 2xpot{if my stack size is good}...
Mostly follow the same rule for turn, but post river i increase my raising level by 2 compared to my post flop raisings...