Hello all this is my first post. I am curious as to your thoughts on half pot bets. pros and cons and when to use them. I tend to notice a lot of players at the stakes I am playing (.01/.02 nl) use this bet more frequently in semi-bluff to all out bluff spots. I have been wrong as well and lost but I see a frequency of I think greater than 50% use as a bluff where I call it a lot more on my missed boards that are looking wet for my opponent in hopes they brick and I can take the pot on the turn or river.
I also see a lot of missed ace boards using this bet as their continuation bet and I have exploited this to my advantage a couple times to success...
your thoughts?
Love all your Posts and opinions!

I don't think there's much to it. On the flop most regs will use a 50%-60% pot bet if the board is dry. If they are balanced it goes either way, they could be value betting or c-betting. with air .I think rather than sizing, their c-bet percentage is a more important factor.

Aggro fish will probably donk a half pot bet on a paired board with air, but again rather than sizing is player terndencies that matter, in my opinion

Bet sizing arent tells unless you really learn specific player tendencies, half pot is common because most poker rooms you can just select half pot to bet in the bottom right. But if you do find patterns in certain players, exploit them!

I personally like to keep all my bet sizes the same, I like to make it 66-75% of pot.
I think choosing a default of 1/2 pot is a little small, people aren't going to fold much of the time if your bluffing, and to be honest they shouldn't either. You also don't get enough value when you hit good hands.

People can also pick up on sizing, so if you bet half pot when you are bluffing and 2/3 pot when you have value they can play exploitatively against you.

Originally Posted by cs_rlewis

People can also pick up on sizing, so if you bet half pot when you are bluffing and 2/3 pot when you have value they can play exploitatively against you.

Exactly! This is why you need to mix in some bluffs for your range and image. My betting tendencies dont vary too much either way, making it a little different to decipher whether i have it or i dont.

Top 30 of an ACR freeroll on demand, called a raise preflop, flop checked around, i bet the turn, called by 2, river comes, i check again, one opponent bets to take the pot down and i jammed with nothing but 9 hi - i had my opponents ranges pretty capped, board ran out very wet textured and i had shown down quite a few stronger hands that made it pretty hard for me to be bluff shoving....aside from me saying in the chatbox that the pot was for sale and i was gonna go all in with a high card lol. It worked, i bluff shoved a pot deep in a freeroll and got it through because of my image and betting tendencies. Makes a big difference