The 2+2 Forum Archives: Theory: Essay on small bets (Very long)

Hey guys, Id love if you guys could add to what im saying or critique some of my ideas (not my writing style

, hopefully this essay makes you think of some things you havent thought too deeply about.

The very small bet in NLHE tourneys, is a great weapon to add to your arsenal in a heads up or 3 way pot against certain playing styles. Ill define a small bet to be anywhere from a quarter of the pot ,to a sixth of the pot. It is not something you want to use very often, because some of its potency is the mind games it plays with people. The thought that often crosses peoples mind is “What the hell does this bet mean?” Some people will put you on the nuts, some people will put you on completely marginal holdings. The more you use it , the less of a psychological edge it has over your opponents, since they will be able to observe patterns and probably think harder about how to play against your min bets.

The only exception to this is if your small bets have proved to be the nuts or weakness consistently in the past. Then I generally use it in a key situation, for the opposite of what ive been showing down. But once you’ve showed that you can diversify your min bets, people generally think a lot harder with your small bets and you cannot manipulate people as easily.

Through my experiences playing 33$ tourneys on party poker ive noticed that are some people react absolutely horribly to min bets, more so than almost any other type of bet.
I always pay attention to when other people min bet around the table and how people are reacting, trying to observe patterns.

There are three typical common patterns people fall into when dealing with min bets, I will outline these below and how to play against them.

NOTE: clearly no one falls rigidly into these categories, people learn and change as the game goes on. If someone is constantly losing money reacting poorly to min bets , they are going to learn. If other players at your table is abusing this too for a little while, don’t try to exploit the weakness any more. The players are going to learn, and you wont know when it will happen, and it will cause you to make a mistake.
ALSO NOTE: In the rest of the essay, When I say “Never do this” I mean when “The players are most likely to react like this to your bets, based on their players previous reactions to your bets, and their playing style in general and therefore move XYZ is not optimal”.

There are three common types of patterns that poor players fall into.

1. The religious callers:
They are people who are making mistakes because of the high frequency at which they are calling your small bets instead of raising or folding.
They will call your bet instead of raising with many hands that warrant a raise . They will also call your bet with very weak holdings that they SHOULD fold to your small bet. Meaning they’re almost definitly not getting proper odds to call based on what they have and the distribution of what you could have.

2. The weak tights:
These are the pessimistic people who think your bet means something tricky or powerful. They probably have odds to raise or call, but will still fold. Nobody will generally always fold, but theres people who fold WAY too often in the face of a min bet. These people are a little harder to identify, because of the fact your not seeing what cards your folding. You have to infer these people based on the percentage of times they are folding to a min bet when confronted by one. Generally if they are weak-tight in other areas of the game, itll probably transfer over (and possibly amplify) when confronted with a min bet.

3. The Bully:
In tourneys, these are by far and a way the most common reactions to min bets.
Generally the “long ballers” all exhibit this property. A lot of people start turning into “a bully” at the later stages of the tournament when blinds are getting high relative to stacks, and people are getting desperate.
The errors that the bullys make , is when confronted with a min bet, they over bet (raise) the pot, with too high of a frequency and too weak holdings. These people generally perceive your min bets as weakness and are looking for an opportunity to scoop up your chips. The more subtle and common error these people make is the amount that they raise your small bet.

Strategies against:
1. All
Don’t ever min bet if, You have a good hand that is probably the best hand but it is vulnerable to many cards. You can’t give people proper odds for people to draw out and beat you. Also if a bully comes in and wants to assert his territory, your hand is not strong enough to be confident that you have him beat, putting you in a tricky scenario. This is one of the most common situations in hold em.

2.The caller:
Don’t bluff small bet the callers, ever. It wont work.

Against the caller I like to small bet my marginal holdings to hopefully see my way cheaply to the river. They aren’t raising you enough with their hands that beat yours. And they’re also calling you with hands that you can beat.
Also if you are on a strong draw and put them on a hand that wont fold to a semi bluff, min betting your strong draw will allow you to see the next street as cheap as possible.

Don’t small bet your strong holdings against them if you think theres a chance they have a hand. When they have a close hand in strength, you will make more than enough by betting substantially at them to compensate for the times you will lose money by making them fold their weak hands that they would have called your min bets with.

If you have a strong hand and are very confident they dont have a hand, then definitly min bet, because this is the only way youll get a call.

3.The weak tights,

Don’t min bet your strong holdings against them for the same reason as above.

These people are where you can bluff min bet the most against, for example if you’re a PF raiser and your not sure if they missed the flop and you missed the flop, a small bet is likely to chase them out risking minimal chips. (especially when an ace flops)
This works the best when you are in position.

Marginal hands are a mixed bag, I occasionally small bet as a way to “mix up my play” While IMO it is not optimal , its not a horrible play.
The problem betting marginal holdings against weak tights, is , while you will get them to fold a fair bit, which is good.. And when your raised your almost definitely beaten and can throw your hand away with minimal loses. I don’t think it is enough to compensate for the times you will get a call, and not know if you are beaten or not. This puts you in a tricky situation on the next street , making it much more likely for you to make a mistake.
The optimal bet I think is about half the pot, this way if your called you know you are almost definitely beaten. But its not so much that you losing a lot if called.

4.The bully,

These are the most common “error making” personalities.

I first generally make a couple small bets at them with marginal hands, then fold if raised substantially. (if they fold, great, you win a pot!) This gets it in their head that they can make me fold my min bets if they bet heavy. Then when I get a strong hand Ill min bet, so frequently they'll come over the top (betting the pot or more) with a raise, which I can then crush with a reraise.

If the person is a “bully” and you’ve folded to their raises a few times, I think this move is much better than the check raise for the following reasons.

1. if you check to the bully they are much more likely to put in a much smaller (say half the pot) bet to try and win the pot. If you’ve shown a little strength they have to push you a bit harder to get you off your hand. Their flaw by definition is “pushing too hard”. You therefore win more money.
2.Your min bets will look scarier to the table (especially if you show down a monster) and win you entire pots in the future

I like to use this move late in the tourney against an aggressive short stacked person. If there chip stack is anywhere in the range of 1.5x-4x the pot ,I find theres a reasonable chance they will go all in with anything to try and steal the pot. You can gleefully call and turn over your powerhouse.

Conclusion:
Most of the time a small bet is not an optimal play, especially against people who are “thinking players”. But certain type of personalities (especially the long ballers) this move is excellent in moderation and a great way to vary up your play.

Edited by Heisenb3rg (03/18/06 01:33 PM)

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