The perfect poker bet.

So I saw some poker show the other day and they showed Daniel Negreanu betting with near nuts. Something like 80,000 into a 600,000 or more pot. It was just enough to get the other guy to wonder and make the call. Of course he won and went on to do well.

Now I tend to win a lot of pots by betting enough to kill the odds against the villain and when I feel I am ahead I seem to be against some kind of draw I want to kill. But I know that sometimes I am not maximizing what I can get out of a pot.

Maybe I scare people a little too much with my bets?

Anyway my question is, and I know a lot of it pertains to what reads I have, what is your stragedy lol I mean stategy for betting when you are pretty sure you have it but the villain is most likely drawing?

I think if I believe that the villain is most likely drawing and I have the best hand, I try to figure out what his odds are and give him worse odds than that, but getting villain to fold to an astronomical bet isn't a win. The objective is to make your opponent make mistakes, and folding to a 3x pot-sized bet is not a mistake. So I try to give tempting but incorrect odds to calls. If my opponent has a 3:1 shot of making his flush, I'll give him 4:1 to 5:1. People who don't bother with "math" in poker might call anyway, and it's EV+ for me every time they do. Sometimes I lose, but on balance because of the way the probabilities work it's beneficial for me every time that gets called.

Of course, I ought to point out that I also saw an episode of Learn with the Pros recently, and they highlighted the time that Negreanu bluffed Freddy Deeb out of a huge pot by making a similarly small bet on the river. Whereas in your example he used it to make his curious opponent call, in mine he made it seem to his opponent that that's what he wanted to do, and Deeb folded the best hand.

I am guessing that the difference here is how he perceived the skill level of his opponent. Something to keep in mind when someone throws that bet out at you, or when you try it to someone else...

to me it is totally dependant on what game it is cash or tourney, semi pro or fish. because in a tourney pot odds don't come into affect nearly as much as people seem to think, setting odds to a guy in a tourney is statistically wrong . while you will win x amount over time where x amount is (odds/ potsize/the fraction of pot it'll cost you) that's in chips with no monetary value. that means you still have to play to be ITM. so making to pot odds call over and over again will eventually get you set(loss) in a tourney.so allot of players care not about the pot odds but more about price(value of pot/their current stack/bet size) and phase of tourney it is. seems string him along with a smudged correct value is better here than an all out assult.

where as in a cash game pot odds is basically all you have so with no protection value no spot to fight for, i underprice them let them play into me. no one is gonna fold a $20 bet into a $200 pot with a draw right? reason i do this is i want them in the hand and more in the pot. this way if i become the 1/3 the make money, meh. and if i'm not there is more money in the pot then there would be if i made it wrong for them to call.


these are statistics again scued if i think the players is a math player in the tourney i push because a math player should never call. and in the cash game i smudge the line a lil over. most meth players make this call against their will because it is close enough. then it's meh or more money for me.

with a fish in a tourney i give them credit for almost every draw unless my stack is huge. reason is while ill win 2/3 of the time i promise that i'll face the situation more than 3 times if i want ITM. this means that even stacked pushed: i win, i win, i loose. stastically i will be busted out more tourneys in this situation then i won't be. ill still make a bet, but in no way is it the mathmatical bet i make vs. the players who think math. in a cash game i want them all in with their stack, never will they get odds so i have have a better crack at the stack this way than playing the hand(even fish know when they miss).


hope it helps

Great replies guys! Thanks for your input.

I agree, in the cash game u have to push push push. Put the pressure on the drawing hand or weak ace by making them commit their stack or a good portion of it. The same can work early on in tournaments. You can push early especially in a freezout-no one wants to bust out early on a draw.

As for maxing the call when you have the nuts. I like to make it just enough to where they "have" to call. If its a cash game and there is $5 in the pot and I have the nuts by the river, I'll bet $2 just to get a call. Less than half the pot should get you a call if they have any sort of hand.

GOOD LUCK!!

Beriac said:

Of course, I ought to point out that I also saw an episode of Learn with the Pros recently, and they highlighted the time that Negreanu bluffed Freddy Deeb out of a huge pot by making a similarly small bet on the river.

Click to expand...

I do that olay a little too much, when I do get called down leaves alot of opponents scratching their heads when the cards get flipped.