PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 125.91 BB - VP 24 / PR 17 / 3B 0 / AF 2 (67 Hands)
SB: 100 BB
BB: 100 BB
CO: 106.59 BB - VP 42 / PR 3 / 3B 5 / AF 1 (81 Hands)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 2♦ 2♥

CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 3 BB

Flop: (9.5 BB, 2 players) 7♥ 3♠ 2♠
CO checks, Hero bets 5 BB, CO calls 5 BB

Turn: (19.5 BB, 2 players) 7♣
CO checks, Hero bets 11 BB, CO calls 11 BB

River: (41.5 BB, 2 players) 6♥
CO checks, Hero bets 30 BB, CO calls 30 BB

I had some bet sizing conflicts this hand. The turn card is polarizing so should I be using polarized sizing to match? I can see going 1/3 here to try and get small value and induce or going large to rep the 7x which is a very thin part of our range and may get looked up by flush draws or other paired hands that are non-believers. If we go large and get called on the turn it also puts stacks in play on the river. I kind of gave up and wend middle of the road sizing between 1/2 and 2/3 instead. On the river I was tempted to overbet as well but I couldn't find enough hands I expect to call so again Hero went for a still strong but more reasonable 3/4 bet. Looking back at it now, I like this line for JJ+ but I think we should be going for fatter value with trips and boats+. Am I being greedy / results oriented here? Or am I missing some EV?

ETA: Also I think I failed to consider Vs stats enough here. With a VPIP of 42 he's got some 7x in his limp call range, at the same time with a PFR being 3% he's got some overpairs as well. Lastly with an AF of 1. He's slow playing some monsters on occasion. Seems like more of a case to size up no? On the other hand his FFCB / FTCB / FRCB were 60 / 25 / 100 but the 100 was 1 out of 1. Working with tiny samples can be a slippery slope.

sizing up both flop & turn vs fish.(66%-75%, could even pot the flop) on river I use a similar sizing

Vs a player like this, if I have a hand that strong, I always try to size so that stacks are in by the river.

Originally Posted by Sidetracked

Vs a player like this, if I have a hand that strong, I always try to size so that stacks are in by the river.

What does that look like in practice? 7 BB on the flop (3/4), 25 BB into 23.5 on the turn (slight overbet), 75 BB into 73.5 on the river (slight overbet)? Or do you load up on either turn or river with a 1.5 or 2x overbet to make the other bet more trivial?

Originally Posted by c0rnBr34d

What does that look like in practice? 7 BB on the flop (3/4), 25 BB into 23.5 on the turn (slight overbet), 75 BB into 73.5 on the river (slight overbet)? Or do you load up on either turn or river with a 1.5 or 2x overbet to make the other bet more trivial?

It's all so player dependent (and I know that you know that, too).

I've agonised over whether I could have got more value with a certain hand vs a certain player, and there's no way of knowing for sure.

On this hand, I would have sized up more on the turn, then when he called the turn, maybe gone for an overbet on the river. A good player would realise that you were polarised there, but I doubt this guy would know.

This type of question is going to change based on the villain in the hand (if you know little then it depends on the stakes you are playing) and of course the board texture matters. I will put in my opinion for just this hand and not ramble on what I think might be the case for other board textures, opponents, etc. Let me also point out that bet sizing is such a moving target and there is rarely a perfect answer. I mean that if we bet for instance 40 BB in a hand and get called then we did not bet enough (whether we have the nuts or are blufffing it doesnt matter) since if villain called 40BB they probably would call 41BB and we missed value or fold equity. There is no way to know the inflection point of villains. I only bring this up because we all have opinions on bet sizing and in reality its just a guess and hopefully more of an educated guess.

So for this hand on the flop I like the sizing since we dont know whether villain has anything or not. Betting too much will cause many folds of stuff we want to keep in while going too small makes little sense with the flush draw out there. Half pot give or take seems good to me and that is what you make it.

The turn gets interesting because of the 7. Obviously the villain has air, some pocket pair above a 7 or has some combination of something on the board (including flush draws). Since we preflop raised how many 7x do we have in our range? Very few in my opinion and even fewer now since 2 are on the board. I would be thinking here that villain should not be putting us on a 7 too often or anything else that hits the board much. Being that that is the case, I think we can go pretty large here to make it look like it is a bluff bet. Villain rarely has 7x, 3x, or 2x either but with them limping and then calling our raise, I think they have more of them than we do. With this thinking I like going bigger to represent something villain doesnt think we have except we do. I believe villain will be calling this large bet often due to this fact and could have some suited connector with a 7.

On the river we have to realize villain called a pre flop raise two streets here which were above half pot. Villain will usually have something here and at worst they have a flush draw. Again, I like going big here knowing they have very few combos that beat us and the flush draw missed which we can act like we are bluffing with. Way too big to go all in here as we have something like 86 BB effective but I think you can pot here and it will be interpreted as a missed draw enough of the time to make more profit betting pot and risking a fold compared to betting something like 15BB here.